product design

Brand & Identity, Illustration

Circle product & brand illustration

When I joined Circle as a product designer, I was hired, in part, for my background in illustration. But that “nice to have” soon became my central focus. I’ve spent years defining and evolving the Circle illustrative brand, cementing its place in our products, website, marketing campaigns, and more.

Podcasts & Events, Music, Personal Projects, Brand & Identity, Illustration

How to Draw a Startup

How to Draw a Startup is a new personal project of mine, a podcast miniseries about the evolving role of illustration in the tech industry. I spoke with over a dozen illustrators, designers, art directors, educators, and more to understand why illustration is used, how illustrated brands are crafted, and where illustrators fit in creative teams.

Product Design

Circle Pay Web product design

When I joined Circle as its third product designer, Circle Pay was available on iOS, Android, and the web. With my arrival, each designer could focus on a single platform. In my case, that meant our oldest app, Circle Pay for web. As I tackled the design of new features, I also sought to untangle inconsistencies, improve our internal design and development workflows, and build a solid, scalable foundation for the app’s future.

Illustration

Circle UI icon library

With the limitations of a small design team, early versions of Circle Pay primarily relied upon off-the-shelf icon sets. But after I joined and began creating illustrations for product and brand, I soon set my sights on icons. I made a few as needed, but replacing the old set entirely wasn't worth the design and development commitment. But with Circle Invest, I was there from the beginning.

Product Design

Intel gesture-control prototype

In 2013, a team within Intel’s R&D division called the “Perceptual Computing Group” approached Fresh Tilled Soil with a curious bit of technology: a depth-sensing camera that could recognize objects in 3D space. Paired with the right software, this would enable computers to understand human hand gestures. My colleagues and I designed and developed a fully-functioning prototype application that would demonstrate the technology’s extraordinary potential.

Writing, Personal Projects, Product Design

Sketch tip: BYO RGB HEX

As a Product Designer & Illustrator at Circle, it’s my job to manage and grow our custom icon set. I’ve built each icon according to the system Steve Stone outlined in Icon Sets with color override in Sketch. It's great …with one caveat. Sometimes, a designer needs to venture outside the brand palette.

Note: I have also published a version of this post to Medium

Podcasts & Events

"The Dirt" podcast

From 2012–2015, I co-hosted and co-produced Fresh Tilled Soil's podcast alongside my colleagues Tim Wright and Steve Hickey. Over the course of 150+ episodes we interviewed extraordinary leaders from Pentagram, Twitter, NASA JPL, Adobe, Etsy, Mozilla, Basecamp, Shopify, and more. Our goal was to produce an engaging and timeless resource for product desigers, entrepreneurs, and developers, carefully balancing education and entertainment.