Expel culture · 3 MIN READ · SCOUT SCHOLES · JUN 17, 2025 · TAGS: Expletives
TL;DR
- Hafsah Mijinyawa is a Senior Motion Designer on the Creative team at Expel
- She studied graphic design in college, and as a rare edge case, has made her career doing exactly what she studied in school
- She’s recently leaned in to her love of motorcycles, and thinks geese are rude (fact)
Hafsah Mijinyawa is currently a Michigan native and video and creative extraordinaire for Expel. Hasfah is our first official volunteer for this series, and TBD on if she ever volunteers for anything for the content team ever again.
One career in graphic design, please
Hafsah’s career in motion and graphic design started with a passion for telling stories. Her love of film and reading started at a young age, and blossomed into a love of science and nonfiction narratives—really, anything where world-building is involved. In college, she was able to experiment with those design skills by creating assets for clubs and events (shoutout to Washtenaw Community College!).
From there, her first job post-college was at Duo, an MFA company. While she was interested in working in tech, it was at Duo that she began to appreciate designing for cybersecurity. “It’s a fascinating industry. There’s so many components to it. So many really intriguing things happen in it, beyond hacking and threats. It’s really good fodder for storytelling, because these people have been through some stuff, they’ve seen some things, and they’re right there in the trenches defending peoples data and privacy, and that’s a really dope story to share.”
Even today, her go-to inspiration is still science fiction—whether it’s Ray Bradbury (specifically the Martian Chronicles), The Expanse (her favorite show), or Battlestar Galactica—classic scifi helps get her creative juices flowing.
On working at Expel
Authenticity is what drew Hafsah to Expel. She had heard, both from people who worked here and people who worked around us, that what we were building (and the why) was worth the hype. “The company really exuded a unique kindness and generosity that made it feel like a place worth coming to, worth working at, and worth staying at. And I think our product has a really great story to tell—it’s something built with love and for a real, tangible need. I’m really glad I get to be a small part of that.”
And she continued, the other thing that keeps her around is that Expel is, well, weird (the endearing kind, not the should-be on-a-watch-list-somewhere kind). “I really relate to people who are authentic, and when brands are authentic—and don’t take themselves too seriously, it’s relatable. Obviously we’re in the cybersecurity realm where things do get really critical and important, but it’s nice when that doesn’t have to be infused into everything. You’re allowed to take a breather, make jokes, chat with a colleague, and loosen up here.”
Hafsah, like most people around here (and likely more than most, if we’re being honest) has a lot of projects in motion at a time as our only motion designer. We asked how she manages her crazy to-do lists, and she had some great tips, but the most important was coffee first. Always. Then she can spend the rest of her day caffeinated and balancing project management, editing, designing, meetings, and anything else that pops up. She finds herself relying on music to stay focused when she’s not editing with audio (like this playlist), and uses to-do lists to create checklists for the day, midweek, and end-of-week to stay on track. She’s also learned to not be afraid to unapologetically block off time for herself to commit to deep, uninterrupted work when it’s needed.
Fun fact and a very important question
Hafsah (hesitantly) shared that she’s recently found a love of bikes (and after some confusing conversations, we realized she meant motorcycles and not bicycles). On a whim, she took a motorcycle riding course, and the surprising difficulty of the full-body experience of controlling a motorbike had her hooked immediately. “Every part of you has to be super aware to ride safely. If you’re fully focused and doing what you need to do, it can be a really Zen experience.” She also confirmed that safety is a big part of the biking experience for her, as she does, in fact, want to keep her skin on her body.
When it was time for her very important question, we asked Hafsah: “If animals could talk, which do you think would be the rudest?” And with very little hesitation this time, she answered with geese (which is factually correct). This very quickly spiraled into terrible tales of geese, and the final group decision was that anything descending from a dinosaur was likely a safe assumption for giving off rude vibes (we’re looking at you, birds).
