Product designer

I've spent over a decade designing complex digital products, embedded with product and engineering teams through engagements that last years rather than weeks. Consumer apps used by millions, and workflow-heavy software: dense screens, real data, and a lot of decisions about what to leave out. I do the design myself, not just direct it. Here are four recent projects.

Primer project screenshot

Primer

Led UX & product design across every surface of Primer's platform, teacher, student and parent experiences, as it grew from 6 to 18 campuses.

Grapevine project screenshot

Grapevine

Led UX & product design for Grapevine's community giving platform as it scaled to nearly 90,000 members and $51 million in donations.

What I'm thinking about

Principles I design by

01 Pencils first.

Opening Figma or an AI tool too early skips the most important step, problem definition.

02 Iterate quickly.

Perfection is the enemy of design evolution and a better user experience.

03 Share early.

I'd rather share something rough and learn fast than present something refined and learn late.

04 Be specific.

"Visual polish" is a placeholder. I push teams to name exactly what's incomplete and why.

05 Design full flows.

Partial screen design and incomplete prototypes tell half a story. They don't express a UX.

06 Think in systems.

A cohesive UX system is what makes a complex product feel simple.

Postmodern self portrait sketch
Postmodern self portrait sketch

These principles come from my background in architecture and a decade of product design embedded with growing companies.

I trained as an architect at Yale and practiced at Robert A.M. Stern Architects before moving into product design. Architecture taught me to think in systems, to design around how people use a space (not form for the sake of form), and to think through the details.

Architecture also taught me that great design is collaborative. The best ideas emerge through critique, iteration, and shared ownership, not from any one person working alone.

My product design work has been through my own studio, Everyday Industries, which I cofounded. Founders brought us in to own design when the product got complicated, and I led that work from strategy through shipped product, hands on throughout.

What I want now is depth over variety: to join a team and focus my effort on a single product, and stay long enough to live with the results instead of handing them off.