About
Hi, I’m Kayla. I stay curious.
Ten years in tech, writing production code and designing for companies you’ve heard of. Now I work with doctors, dentists, lawyers and entrepreneurs whose reputation has outgrown their online presence.
I get genuinely curious about your work, because that’s where the good ideas come from. Then I design it and build it myself. One person, start to finish.
How I got here
Raleigh, Aiken, Wingate, Atlanta.
- Raleigh, then Aiken, then Wingate
The court
I played D2 basketball at USC Aiken, then Wingate. Two schools, four years, leading scorer. It was my entire world.
It taught me to watch for patterns, to talk to each teammate the way they hear it, and to use a timeout to regroup instead of panic.
- The ACL
Twenty
I tore my ACL at 20.
I had to figure out who I was without a jersey.
- At the same time
A camera and a keyboard
I picked up both at once. Two ways of building when I couldn’t hoop.
Design became the career. The camera stayed.
- Ten years
Support, code, design
I started in support, taught myself to code, then learned to design.
Ten years later I’m still somewhere between a Figma file and a codebase. I’ve never been great at staying on one side of a line.
- Now, in Atlanta
Stay Kurious
I design and build sites for professionals whose reputation has outgrown their online presence.
Same habits as the court. Watch first, then adjust.
Why I started Stay Kurious
I care about the craft. The detail that took three hours to get right. The page that matches what was designed instead of an approximation of it.
I also learned, the hard way, that the thing you build is never for you. It has to work the way the other person works, not the way I do.
So when a doctor or a lawyer tells me people find an old directory profile before they find them, I don’t swap their logo into a theme. I learn how they work and who they want to reach, then build around that.
That’s the whole job, really.
Sites that do the proving for you.
I know what it’s like to have to prove you belong before you’ve said a word. So I design sites that make the case before you walk in the room: who you are, what you do, and why the people who sent them were right.
How I work
One person, start to finish.
- I listen before I design.
- Every custom site starts with one conversation about your work. Then you get a written recap of what I heard, so you know I understood you before anything is designed.
- I build every site myself.
- No agency, no handoff, no junior designer. The person you talk to is the person who builds it.
- I take two custom sites a month.
- That’s how I keep every one of them mine, start to finish.
- It’s yours.
- Your domain and your accounts, in your name. Nothing goes live until you love it.
Who I’ve worked with
In their words.
“Somehow, you’ve been able to take all of my thoughts, ideas, emails, and details and turn them into something that actually feels like Sentinel.”
Patience Rogers, EAFounder, Sentinel Strategy GroupSee her site“Kayla understood where I’m going and made it look real.”
Dr. Mikaëlle WilliamsOrthodontic residentSee the site“Now when people look me up, they see who I actually am.”
Dr. Jesse SeilernOrthopaedic surgerySee the site
The name
Why Kurious.
I’ve always been curious. Not the polite kind. The kind where I see something and think, could I learn that? Could I figure it out?
So I try it. Code, when I couldn’t play anymore. Design, when I wanted the code to look right. A camera, a sketchbook, a paintbrush. A pottery wheel, once.
Every one of them stays. I collect skills like infinity stones, and I’m still looking for the next one.
That’s how I start on your site, too. I get curious about your work until I understand it.
Outside the work
When I’m not building.
- Portraits on my Lumix.
- Sketchbooks nobody asked for.
- Paintings that were frustrating, and then suddenly weren’t.
- A pottery class I took on a random Tuesday, to know what it felt like to make something with my hands.
- These days the camera follows HYROX athletes and gyms, and I’m working on a film about basketball.
I also research everything into the ground before I try it. I’m not sure if that’s a strength or a personality flaw, but it’s very consistent.
Two ways to work together.
Or just say hello: hello@staykurious.studio