Industrial Design, Design Thinking, and Innovation

Amid the interactive digital displays and floor-to-ceiling screens of The Helix, Booz Allen’s new Center for Innovation in Washington, DC, is a curved wall with a more traditional feel. On it, visitors can discover a diagram of an aircraft and its digital twin, battleship sketches, handwritten quotes from the firm’s founders, and more, with augmented reality (AR) scanning points leading to more information.

This mural is the creation of Senior Associate Allie Miller, who’s also the center’s deputy director and a customer experience lead. Here Allie shares highlights from this journey, how she found the “freedom to take a chance” at Booz Allen, and what inspires her.

Growing up, Allie was interested in both art and design, and science and biology. This led to a fine arts degree from Mount Holyoke College and a plan to go to medical school. She worked in clinical public health first, gaining a range of experiences at nonprofits in Atlanta, Georgia, a community development organization in Peru, and the Clinton Foundation in New York.

“I enjoyed the work and found it rewarding, but I was missing the creativity and artistry,” she says.

So Allie enrolled in the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a master’s degree in industrial and product design. It’s a field she describes as “not just about making something pretty but also making it functional and solving a human problem.”

After graduation, Allie joined Booz Allen. Her first projects involved design thinking for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where she worked to understand the challenges that veterans face in their communities and the ecosystem that supports them. Similar initiatives for the U.S. Department of Agriculture followed, working with farmers, ranchers, and the agency’s staff.

“It’s really rewarding to have such a direct impact on people who are using government programs and services,” Allie says.

Then Allie joined the Booz Allen team creating the look for The Helix. They worked with award-winning architects, technologists, and creative vendors on everything from colors and materials to the innovation center’s graphic design and microbrand.

The Helix is “bioinspired”—where curved walls and natural colors meet more tech-inspired design elements. The design came about organically, Allie says, and, “it helped that I have a background in biology and STEM and the arts.” Her team included similarly “double-brained colleagues, which played a role in many design aspects, including in the materials we picked.”

As opening day for The Helix drew closer, the team faced a blank wall—literally. They needed to create something for the vast expanse of curved space near The Helix’s reception area. And the clock was ticking.

“I said, ‘I can paint the mural!’” Allie says. “No one knew what I could do as an artist, but my leadership and managers trusted me. Even if they were nervous, they were supportive.”

Over 4 months of planning and 6 weeks of execution, Allie brought the mural to life. She worked with branding and marketing to identify the stories Booz Allen wanted to tell, drew corresponding images, brought them all together into a collage, and projected the drawings onto the wall for the final mural. The result is “an homage to past, present, and future.”

In Allie’s own past, present, and future, she cites “so many people who have inspired me,” from established leaders at Booz Allen to people she’s talked to only once.

In addition, Allie says her undergraduate experience at Mount Holyoke “focused on helping me find my voice and feeling empowered. That’s very much embedded in me.”

Throughout life, she extends this philosophy to listening and learning. “You can be inspired and learn from everyone,” she says.