Adrien Castelain
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Wellington, New Zealand
Toptal member since October 1, 2019
Adrien is an award-winning product designer and digital art director with 17 years of experience crafting beautiful, meaningful digital experiences. He specialises in UX/UI design, design systems, and prototyping—turning complex workflows into interfaces that solve real problems and feel delightful to use. His clients hire him for his ability to go deep on the problem, deliver polished, dev-ready output, and stay embedded with teams through to implementation.
Portfolio
Help Bring Your Goals to Life | Banking App
Sustainable Housing Collaboration Platform
Pay for Fuel From Your Car
Collaborative Digital Transformation App
Kellogg's VR Experience
Work Experience
Design Director | Founder
Boald Limited (New Zealand)
- Developed a digital experience (UI/UX) for a domain name trading platform and marketing website.
- Created a complete digital experience, visual language, design system, and interaction system for a high-end music system combining software and hardware to enhance the listening experience.
- Made a cryptocurrency platform experience from scratch, building a custom design system, developing user-flows, personas, and wireframes, and working in Agile to iterate and improve based on customer feedback.
- Developed a brand identity, marketing website, and digital product experience for an innovative AI-powered experience startup, using a design-thinking and user-centered approach to improve user flows and interactions.
- Led UX and UI for an investment banking web app, delivering user research, testing, and enhancing main user flows (onboarding, investing, withdrawing, customer feedback, etc), building a design system.
- Spearheaded user research, UI/UX, and branding for an innovative map application, wireframing, prototyping, testing, scaling the design system, iterating, and rebranding the overarching guidelines.
- Oversaw branding, UI/UX, and launch of an MVP for an online tutoring platform.
- Implemented user research, wireframing, prototyping for, and design for complex in-house software using a design thinking process.
- Designed the UX and UI for Air New Zealand's promotional app.
Lead Product Designer
Sav.com
- Developed a comprehensive and flexible UI design system streamlining work between designers and developers.
- Created advanced prototypes for user testing and developers, improving user feedback and developers' understanding.
- Turned advanced hosting and domain name management functionalities into more accessible and intuitive solutions, improving the overall user experience significantly.
UX Designer
BlockFi
- Developed and improved specific user flows from user feedback, UX research, and wireframing.
- Created a visual language from existing guidelines.
- Mocked up some visual concepts for marketing purposes.
Product Designer
DSX Pty Ltd
- Collaborated, as a team leader, with talented designers to build a cryptocurrency platform from scratch, audit and strategy, user research, user flows, information architecture, UI/UX, design system, iconography, prototypes, and user testing.
- Worked closely with co-founders, developers, and stakeholders to scope and plan the launch and multiple updates of the app, ensuring a solid and flexible strategy and a controlled outcome.
- Developed several personas, built the information architecture, and created multiple wireframes and user flows to map out the app's structure.
- Refreshed the brand identity and developed a new UI from basic atoms like a color palette or typography up to comprehensive design components shared with developers through variables and tokens for a smoother workflow.
UX Designer
Kiwi Wealth
- Designed a complete digital experience for a banking investment app in an Agile environment within a six-month timeframe.
- Developed personas, user flows, and wireframing for specific flows, like onboarding, investing, withdrawing, notifications, etc.
- Created a visual language and a design system based on existing guidelines.
Senior Digital Designer | Digital Art Director
Ogilvy & Mather (New Zealand)
- Led the UX and UI for an innovative VR experience for Kellogg's, from creative concepts and brand guidelines to user experience and production-ready UI.
- Oversaw the art direction and design of various creative digital campaigns for Pernod Ricard.
- Designed the UX and UI for an innovative mobile app for called BPme (an app that allowed you to pay for your fuel from your phone).
- Designed hundreds of social media ads for global companies.
Web Designer | UX/UI Designer
Freelance (Global)
- Created hundreds of web and app interfaces across multiple industries, as well as marketing visuals.
- Provided digital design services for agencies in France, Spain, Switzerland, and Australia.
- Delivered efficient and responsive support for digital and communication agencies via curated art direction and creative designs.
Web Designer
Quelinka (Spain)
- Designed and developed websites across multiple industries, from UX/UI to front and back-end.
- Provided comprehensive digital solutions focusing on identity, websites, blogs, videos, and mobile applications.
- Managed clients' relationships and expectations, scoping and planning projects to ensure delivery.
Multimedia Designer
Mouss Production (France)
- Filmed and edited videos for international outdoor sports events (France, Spain, Italy, and Libya).
- Edited videos and implemented special effects and diffusion for web and TV.
- Designed, developed, and maintained a web TV.
Education
Master's Degree in Communication and Marketing Strategy
Wesford Grenoble Graduate Business School - Grenoble, France
Postgraduate Diploma in Multimedia Design and Direction
Les Gobelins - Annecy, France
Bachelor's Degree in Digital Communication
University of Savoie - Chambéry, France
Skills
Tools
Sketch, InVision, Zeplin, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Experience Design (XD), UXPin, Jira, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Framer X, InVision Studio, Photoshop 2024, Sketch 2, ProtoPie, Slack
Platforms
MacOS, Figma, Webflow, Adobe Suite, WordPress, Android, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
Languages
HTML, JavaScript, PHP, HTML5, CSS
Industry Expertise
Real Estate, Advertising, Retail & Wholesale
Other
Visual Hierarchy, Online Banking, Investment Banking, Atomic Design, Design Strategy, User Flows, User Onboarding, Responsive Design, Digital Strategy, Website Redesign, Responsive UI, UX Flows, Complex Application User Interfaces (UI), UX Strategy, Mobile App Design, UI Branding, Digital Experience Design, Creative Design, Digital Branding, User-centered Design (UCD), User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Branding, Interaction Design (IxD), Prototyping, Design Systems, Mobile UI, Web UI Design, Web UX Design, Mobile UX, Wireframing, Digital Product Design, Digital Design, Design Leadership, Visual Design, Freelancing, UX Design, UI Design, Fintech, Dashboard Design, Cryptocurrency, Product Design, Layout Design, Web & Mobile Applications, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Mobile Design, Web App Design, AI-powered Product Design, Web App UI, Web App UX, Web Dashboards, Web Design, Web Applications, Cross-functional Collaboration, Dashboards, Usability, MVP Design, SaaS Design, Design Sprints, Stakeholder Engagement, Logotype, AI Design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Online Marketing, Brand Guidelines, Design Thinking, Digital Advertising, Information Architecture (IA), Design Guidelines, Data Visualization, Iconography, User Personas, Component Libraries, eCommerce, eCommerce UI, eCommerce UX, User Journeys, Finance, Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS), Logo Design, Vector Logos, Blockchain, UI Animation, Agile, Guidelines, Property Investment, Digital Transformation, Crowdsourcing, Customer Interviews, Startups, Mobile Apps, Business Applications, Advertising Campaigns, Creative Thinking, Brand Activation, Real Estate Development, Sustainability, Collaboration, VR Interfaces, Augmented Reality (AR), Google Cardboard, User Research, Illustrator 2024, Experiential Design, Communication, Social Media, Marketing Strategy, App UI, App UX, Graphic Design, Game Design, Multimedia Design, Virtual Reality (VR), Claude Code, MCPs, Teams
Experience
- User Experience (UX) - 15 years
- User Interface (UI) - 15 years
- Mobile App Design - 13 years
- Design Leadership - 10 years
- Branding - 10 years
- Figma - 10 years
- Digital Product Design - 9 years
- User-centered Design (UCD) - 5 years
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