Alex da Silva Cortes
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Hamburg, Germany
Toptal member since June 30, 2022
Alex is a senior product designer with 15 years of experience across product strategy, UX and UI, and design systems. He is a full-stack design partner for startups in the US and Europe, covering research, interface design, and functional prototyping. His work spans B2B SaaS, fintech, marketplaces, and internal tools, with design systems that hold an interface together as it grows, and Figma alongside no-code tools to reach working interfaces fast.
Experience
- Mobile App UI - 8 years
- User Interface (UI) - 8 years
- User Experience (UX) - 8 years
- UI Design - 8 years
- Design Sprints - 8 years
- UX Design - 8 years
- Figma - 7 years
- Product Design - 6 years
Portfolio
Scaelife | App for Long-stay Institutions for the Elderly
Work Experience
Product (UX/UI) Designer
Reflectrr, Ltd.
- Owned UX and UI across both surfaces of the product, the student mobile app and the web console used by campus staff, keeping patterns, states, and language consistent between the two.
- Structured the conversation into twelve stages and six routing modes, giving the interface a predictable rhythm so students can tell what the system is doing and what comes next at each step.
- Designed the staff web console around the work administrators actually do, with the density and hierarchy of a desktop reading view rather than mobile patterns stretched to a wider screen.
- Applied usability heuristics as the review standard for both surfaces, visibility of system status, user control, consistency, and error prevention, settling pattern decisions by criteria instead of preference.
- Led the design system from palette and type scale through components: the orb states, conversation loop, check-in slider, voice input, and consent screen, documented so that the app and console stayed aligned.
- Wrote a message-part contract typing every element that can appear in a conversation, which let engineering build functional first and kept new features reusing existing patterns rather than adding more.
- Designed consent as a step in the flow instead of a signup checkbox: the student reviews and edits the exact summary before it reaches a staff member, keeping the handoff to a person under their control.
- Verified WCAG 2.1 AA with VoiceOver and TalkBack before store submission, and prototyped flows in the browser to check pacing and transitions that static screens do not reveal.
- Mapped the staff side of the handoff in the web console, from a referral arriving with the summary the student approved to the disengagement signal, so administrators see the case with context, not a bare alert.
Product Designer
Cail LLC
- Built a custom icon library and Figma component system, organizing icons into blue- and gray-scale variations to standardize the app's navigation UI.
- Established a new design system style guide covering color, spacing, and border-radius variables, improving consistency across the product.
- Designed Open Transactions and Customer List screens, giving detailers visibility into current and past customers and service history.
- Introduced a Request Cancellation flow, including a new CTA and a dedicated screen with reason selection and cancellation policy details.
- Improved the app's overall experience, design, and usability, making the product more intuitive and user-friendly for detailers.
Graphic Designer
BlueRidge Real Estate Partners, LLC
- Designed and produced 30+ industrial property marketing documents in InDesign, building a scalable template system with master pages and data merge that reduced per-document production time by around 60%.
- Translated a third-party brand identity into a full marketing asset library, brochures, interactive presentations, and PDF templates, ensuring visual consistency across a $4B+ CRE portfolio.
- Built a centralized design request workflow in Notion for a 7-person brokerage team, standardizing briefing intake, priority tracking, and revision cycles to cut average deliverable turnaround time.
UX/UI and Visual Designer
Covered
- Designed and delivered the new website for Covered, improving clarity, structure, and overall user experience.
- Worked within the marketing team to scale design production, creating reusable templates and systems for social media, events, sales materials, and email marketing.
- Built a flexible design foundation that enabled faster content creation and more consistent brand communication across channels.
Visual Designer
Daily AI LLC
- Produced over 60 branded assets across the entire customer journey, from e-books and social media to packaging, event materials, and internal systems.
- Reduced design production time by 40% by creating reusable templates for marketing, onboarding, and internal communications.
- Improved brand consistency by 70% across digital and physical channels, based on an internal audit conducted post-implementation.
Product Designer (UX/UI)
Reneo Group
- Organized and collaborated with the product team, including project managers and developers.
- Understood business needs and ensured that projects met business objectives.
- Conducted research with users to understand their needs and create user-friendly designs.
- Worked closely with the product team to iterate on product designs.
- Created personas, journey maps, user flows, and site maps.
- Developed sketches, wireframes, and prototypes to guide the evolution of the startup's products.
- Guided the creation of the product's visual language and style guides, creating a basis for a future design system.
- Led and participated in design critiques, encouraging a culture of constructive feedback.
- Conducted usability tests on the product to lead decision-making on the improvements or additions required.
Product Designer
Exactaworks
- Designed one of the great fintech apps in Brazil called Ame Digital, which ranked number three among the most famous digital wallets in Brazil.
- Created and guided all service design, UX, and UI steps for the company's first product, a SaaS platform for the GDPR.
- Implemented the UX culture in the company, designing the area OKRs; roles, goals, and requirements; squads and chapters; and the UX career track.
UX Strategy
Factual Pesquisas
- Implemented the UX culture in the company and revamped all user experiences and interfaces of survey tablets and web systems.
- Built a brand identity guide, including colors, typography, and the company's new website.
- Created an app for public services, the company's first digital product for a city hall that is a client of the company.
- Started the design thinking dynamics and increased the range of the projects.
UI and UX Designer
Invillia
- Worked closely with product, engineering, growth, marketing, and sales to ship numerous projects across financial clients and many digital products on desktop, mobile web, iOS, and Android, as well as marketing and internal needs.
- Organized, planned, and executed user research and usability testing for projects.
- Led the design and marketing team to win the first Great Place to Work award that brought more visibility to the company and new clients.
Visual Designer
Inpacto Propaganda
- Designed materials for social media and supported the marketing team in sales materials.
- Created several email marketing and landing pages for seasonal campaigns for retail companies.
- Designed brands for small and medium-sized companies, including brand manuals and stationery.
Education
Postgraduate in Game Design
Faculdade Metropolitana - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Postgraduate in User Experience Specialist
Universidade Anhembi Morumbi - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Bachelor's Degree in Advertising and Marketing
Universidade Paulista - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Certifications
Design Thinking
IDEO
Product Design
USP - Universidade de Sao Paulo
Product Manager
Product School
Visual Hierachy and Spacing in UI Design
UI Lab
Concepts of Responsiveness and UX Design
Digital Innovation One
Skills
Tools
Miro, Adobe CC, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe, Canva, Wix, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Trello, Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, Google Slides, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, AI Tools, Jira, Slack, MURAL, InVision, Zeplin, InDesign CC
Platforms
Figma, Web, Mobile, Messenger Bots
Industry Expertise
Marketing, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals
Other
UX Design, UI Design, Product Design, Design Sprints, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Mobile UX Design, Web App UI, User Flows, B2B, Web App UX, Navigation, Visual Design, Branding, Web App Design, Mobile UI Design, Landing Page Design, Graphic Design, User Experience Design, Wireframing, Software as a Service (SaaS), Print Design, Mobile Design, Android App Design, Marketing Design, Presentation Design, Business to Consumer (B2C), Rapid Prototyping, Design Systems, Brand Design, Ads, SaaS, Social Media Design, Collateral Design, Marketing Collateral Development, Booklet Design, Brand Guidelines, Website Design, User Journey Maps, Component Libraries, Email Template Design, Banner Ads, Banner Design, Content Design, Digital Ad Design, Digital Advertising, Email Design, Email Marketing, Adobe Creative Cloud, Attention to Detail, Customer Experience (CX) Design, UX Strategy, UX Architecture, Design Thinking, Mobile App Design, Dashboard Design, PowerPoint Design, Iconography, Data Visualization, Typography, Web Design, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Early-stage Startups, SaaS Design, Web UX, Web UI, Web UX Design, MVP Design, Design Leadership, Desktop App Design, UI Prototyping, User Testing, Advertising Design, Social Media Advertising, Mobile UX, Creative Briefs, Business to Business (B2B), Artificial Intelligence (AI), App Design, Wix Studio, AI Design, Lovable, Tablet Design, AI Agents, AI Content Creation, Color Theory, Localization, AI-powered Product Design, AI-assisted UX, Notion, Game Design, Storytelling, Gamification, UX Research, Product Management, Dashboards, Mobile App UI, System Design, Token Design, Blueprint, Web UI Design, Prototyping, Redesign, Web Marketing, SMS Marketing, SMS Bots, Web Dashboards, UX Wireframes, Mobile Wallet, Money Transfers, Fintech, Bank Transactions, Finance, Pets, Veterinary Medicine, Mobile UI, Animal Care, SMS, SMS Gateways, Complex Web Systems, Bots, B2C, Pharmacy, Health IT, Job Portals, Maps, Smart City Technology, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Websites, Responsive UI, Cross-platform UX, Personal Care, Home, B2B2C, Business Law, Agile, Lean UX, Scrum Master, Agile Sprints, Apps, Desktop Web Design, Job Search Sites, Smart Cities, UI Maps, Law, Illustration, Interface Design, Financial Design, Financial UX, Agile UX, Interactive Prototypes, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), User Experience Strategy, Real Estate UI, Insurance Web Design, Healthcare Software, Claude Design, Conversational AI, Chatbots, Conversational Design, Conversational UI Design, AI Chatbots, Accessibility, Print Marketing Design
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