Ali Ahunbáev is a product designer and artist based in New York. His work moves between software, print, film, and events, held together by a single conviction: that beauty and utility belong in the same object, and that the tools worth making are the ones that bring out the best in the people who use them. He is the founder of Combat Créatif, a studio for people who treat their craft with discipline, whose output so far includes a clothing line, a training app, a print journal, a short film, and an art exhibition on a rooftop in Flatiron. He works in creative direction at Verci, a members space for creatives, and studies computer science at New York University.

He grew up in Chicago drawing and painting, and intended to study architecture until Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters, read in high school, turned him toward computer science. With no experience in the field, he applied to the top twenty programs in the country and was rejected by all of them. He enrolled at a community college, taught himself web design, and began building his own things. A year later he transferred to NYU and moved to New York, where he produced The Art Movement, an exhibition and rooftop party for 250 people.

Dancing across mediums, his practice is organized less by discipline than by a pull toward building beautiful things, whatever form they need to take. Combat is named for the creative struggle, the war of art he sees as the foundation of a life, and it takes its spirit from hip-hop, jazz, and the blues, music made from pain that became the most influential sound of the last century. He writes weekly at Playfighter on discipline, creativity, and building a life that feels like play.

He is drawn to companies as committed to beauty as they are to growth, with a culture of excellence and a real love for the work, and hopes to spend the coming years designing products and experiences that bring out the best in people, alongside people who do the same for him.