Amanda Murray has built a career around turning ideas into experiences people can actually see, feel, navigate, and remember. Her work lives in the space between a founder’s sketch, an architect’s drawing, an operator’s reality, and the way a guest ultimately feels when they walk through the door.

Raised in New Jersey, Amanda studied Visual Arts at the State University of New York and began her career in graphic design, branding, photography, and visual communication. Her early work ranged from custom creative and catalog design to full brand systems, photography, digital content, and client campaigns. Those years taught her to listen carefully, find the idea underneath the words, and translate it into something clear enough for other people to understand.

Amanda first began working with Josh Rossmeisl and Doug Warner as a freelance designer. In 2017, she joined their leadership group full time as the team was continuing to evolve its approach to experiential dining. She progressed from Visual Design Manager to Executive Design & Innovation Manager and ultimately to Vice President of Experience Design. With each step, the job became larger because Amanda kept taking on problems that sat outside the traditional boundaries of design.

She became part designer, part storyteller, part brand steward, and part translator between vision, architecture, operations, marketing, construction, and the guest. Her strength is making an abstract idea tangible without losing the emotion that made the idea worth pursuing in the first place.

Amanda was part of the founding group that developed Your 3rd Spot from a concept into a physical experience. The work extended across the entire guest journey, from the first digital impression and reservation experience to the arrival, the room, the games, the food and beverage, the signage, the details people photograph, and the moments they remember afterward. She helped shape a brand where design supports human connection and where seemingly small decisions can change how a guest feels in the space.

Today, Amanda’s work reaches across physical design, brand expression, environmental storytelling, websites, social media, public relations, creative communication, site development, and construction. Large experiential venues demand that those disciplines stay connected. Amanda helps protect the creative intent while working with operators, architects, contractors, marketers, and technology partners to make sure the idea can survive real use.

She has earned a reputation inside AMP Up1 for being able to take a complicated conversation and give it form. She listens before she designs. She asks uncomfortable questions when something feels generic or disconnected from the brand. She also believes growth should create new opportunities for creativity rather than become a copy and paste exercise. The brand needs a recognizable point of view, while each location still needs enough life and context to feel like it belongs where it was built.

Amanda’s own progression is part of the culture she helps represent. She entered the group because she was talented at design. Her responsibilities expanded because she kept learning, earned trust, and proved she could make the entire experience better. She believes creative people do their best work when expectations are high, ownership is real, and good ideas are allowed to come from anywhere.

The Looking Glass is AMP Up1 Hospitality’s next brand, expanding the team’s work into a new immersive world built around curiosity, discovery, hospitality, food, beverage, play, and storytelling. At the same time, Your 3rd Spot is growing beyond Atlanta with locations opening throughout the United States. Amanda helps create the visual and experiential thread that makes those brands distinct while keeping the company’s purpose recognizable underneath them.

For Amanda, experience design is hospitality. It starts with thinking about another human being before they arrive and caring enough about every detail to make their time together feel considered once they do.

Outside of her professional life, Amanda enjoys spending time in the PNW with her husband, Dan, and their dog Kona. Together, they volunteer for a local dog rescue, fostering dogs and helping them find forever homes. Amanda's love for home design, travel, comedy, baking, and culinary exploration mirrors her professional dedication to creating enriching, engaging experiences.