Andrijana Mrkela
Verified Expert in Design
UI/UX Designer
Varaždin, Croatia
Toptal member since August 11, 2017
Andrijana is an experienced designer, focusing on user-centered product design. With expertise in digital strategy, UX/UI, and prototyping, she thrives in solving intricate problems with creative thinking. Her data-driven designs create immersive experiences for the intended audience. With 10+ years of experience developing B2C and B2B solutions across diverse industries, Andrijana is an award-winning designer and holds the position of lead designer and co-founder at a renowned digital agency.
Portfolio
CSS Weekly | Website and Newsletter Redesign
SPOT | Website Design
Work Experience
Visual Designer
AIMOO LLC
- Redesigned the website using Figma, creating low- and high-fidelity wireframes that improved user experience, brand representation, and alignment with the client’s objectives.
- Developed a comprehensive design system, ensuring consistency across the website’s visual elements, typography, color scheme, and overall branding.
- Created custom illustrations and iconography to visually communicate the software’s innovative features, making the website more engaging and tailored to the target audience.
- Crafted and implemented a responsive WordPress website, delivering a user-friendly and professional online presence that aligns with the client’s brand guidelines.
- Enhanced the website’s landing pages and messaging by combining compelling design with engaging copywriting, effectively showcasing the software’s value and optimizing conversion opportunities.
Lead Designer
Pixel Industry, Ltd.
- Worked with clients across diverse industries—finance, agriculture, art galleries, SaaS, marketing agencies, and food and beverage—ranging from startups to large enterprises, with a global reach spanning the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
- Managed all stages of product development—defining specifications, creating website architectures, creating user flows, UX and visual designs, front-end development, user training sessions, and website maintenance.
- Collaborated with remote clients and effectively communicated to other project members about project deliverables using GoToMeeting, Jira, Slack, Zoom, Asana, and Skype.
- Worked as part of a remote design team for an international company, collaborating with colleagues from France, Israel, Russia, and Hong Kong for over 2.5 years and continuing.
- Featured in Issue 219 of Web Designer Magazine, one of the top web design and development publications.
- Worked on projects that earned awards from influential international galleries (Awwwards, CSS Design Awards, Web Guru Awards, and more).
- Co-founded a digital agency that began by selling premium PSD, HTML, and WordPress themes on ThemeForest, achieving Elite status within its 1st year. Today, the agency boasts a portfolio with over 10,000 sales and serves clients worldwide.
Brand and Web Designer
Inselspital (Bern University Hospital)
- Redesigned the landing page for the SaaS service using Figma, creating a more professional and polished look that aligns with the target audience of medical professionals.
- Optimized the proportions and layout of design elements, improving the visual hierarchy and user experience to ensure clear communication of key information.
- Collaborated effectively with stakeholders to refine the design and ensure alignment with their vision, resulting in a cohesive and impactful digital presence.
Senior Product Designer
ARTA Shipping Inc.
- Led the UI/UX design process for the company's web application, including creating a comprehensive design system and the complete app redesign to improve usability and align with the brand's luxury and high-end commerce focus.
- Designed and implemented new product features for the web app, collaborating closely with the product team and CTO to ensure seamless integration and enhanced user experiences for logistics tools and services.
- Created marketing assets and landing pages, including product-specific pages and booking flows, working hand-in-hand with the marketing team to drive engagement and customer acquisition.
- Produced investor-facing materials, such as pitch decks, ensuring a polished and cohesive visual narrative that effectively communicated the brand’s vision and product value to stakeholders.
- Instilled design best practices and streamlined workflows, contributing to improved collaboration between design, product, and engineering teams and delivering high-impact results in a fast-paced, agile environment.
UI Designer
Teachers' Curriculum Institute, LLC
- Designed and implemented UI/UX improvements across the SaaS product, including wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs, ensuring a seamless and visually stunning experience for over 2.6 million students and 97,000 teachers across 50 states.
- Improved navigation and application structure to enhance usability, reduce user friction, and support educators and students in accessing critical tools and resources efficiently.
- Created custom illustrations and iconography that aligned with the brand’s identity, making the interface more engaging and accessible for K-12 users of all ages.
- Collaborated with the project management team to implement designs, maintaining design consistency and ensuring smooth integration into the existing platform.
- Led iterative design processes based on feedback and analytics, continually optimizing the product to meet the evolving needs of educators and students while maintaining a cohesive user experience across all updates.
WordPress Designer
Landscape Institute
- Designed and developed multiple WordPress-based websites for the Landscape Institute, handling everything from ideation and architecture to UI, design systems, UX, and full implementation.
- Created a standout WordPress website recognized by an industry newspaper as a benchmark for excellence, stating it exemplified how websites in the landscape industry should be built.
- Established a scalable design system for the Landscape Institute’s web platforms, ensuring consistency in branding, usability, and visual identity across all digital touchpoints.
- Defined website architecture and navigation systems for all projects, making it easy for users to find information and engage with the Landscape Institute’s services.
- Optimized websites for responsive design and accessibility, ensuring seamless usability across devices and compliance with web accessibility standards.
- Contributed to improved industry visibility and user engagement by creating digital platforms highlighting the Landscape Institute’s mission, resources, and value to the professional community.
- Collaborated closely with marketing and development teams to design a custom B2B web application tailored for landscape professionals, ensuring alignment with business goals and user needs.
- Led every stage of the UX process for the B2B web application, conducting user research, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing to deliver an intuitive and user-centric experience.
- Designed a comprehensive UI for the custom web application, including dashboards, user profiles, and inner screens, focusing on clarity, functionality, and aesthetic appeal.
- Implemented front-end development for the custom web application, ensuring seamless back-end integration and high performance and responsiveness.
UI/UX Designer
Yxterix
- Developed a comprehensive design system aligned with Yxterix’s refreshed branding, incorporating updated visual language, typography, color palettes, and UI elements to establish a cohesive and modern brand identity.
- Redesigned the website architecture to enhance user navigation, clearly communicate Yxterix’s influencer management services, and ensure optimal accessibility and usability across all devices.
- Created custom website designs in Figma, leveraging user-centric design principles to produce visually engaging and functional layouts tailored to Yxterix's target audience.
- Implemented custom WordPress development to transform the designs into a responsive and dynamic website, seamlessly integrating branding and ensuring high performance.
- Collaborated with stakeholders to refine brand messaging and translate it into compelling digital experiences, helping Yxterix strengthen its online presence and stand out in the competitive influencer marketing industry.
WordPress Designer
Everblue, LLC
- Designed 30+ high-fidelity responsive web mockups tailored for seamless WordPress implementation, ensuring a modern and professional B2B website design aligned with Everblue Training’s goals.
- Refreshed the brand identity with updated visual elements, including typography, color schemes, and iconography, to enhance Everblue’s credibility and appeal in the sustainable energy and construction education sector.
- Improved navigation and content structure, making it easier for users to access key information about training and certification programs, boosting user engagement and retention.
- Crafted user-centric UI designs that prioritized accessibility and responsiveness, delivering a consistent and engaging experience across all devices.
- Collaborated with developers to ensure smooth WordPress implementation, maintaining design integrity and optimizing the site for performance and scalability.
UI/UX Designer
Let's Make Art
- Designed and conducted custom surveys targeting the existing user base, achieving a 35% email survey response rate and uncovering valuable insights into user behaviors and pain points in the purchasing process.
- Implemented analytics tools, including Hotjar, Google Analytics, and Shopify Analytics, to identify drop-off points and inefficiencies in the subscription-based checkout process, enabling data-driven decision-making.
- Proposed and redesigned the navigation and main landing page structure based on user data and UX best practices, improving usability and addressing key customer pain points.
- Increased landing page conversions by 20% following the implementation of design and navigation improvements, significantly boosting the subscription signup rate.
UI/UX Designer
thinkMESH
- Designed and implemented a custom WordPress theme to establish a unique and professional online presence for thinkMESH, aligning with the company’s brand identity and goals.
- Developed a scalable website architecture and intuitive navigation system to communicate thinkMESH's mission, services, and values, ensuring an optimal user experience across devices.
- Created a comprehensive design system with consistent typography, color schemes, and UI elements to maintain brand integrity and streamline future updates.
- Ideated and crafted engaging content layouts to effectively showcase thinkMESH's purpose-driven community-building initiatives, enhancing user engagement and readability.
UI/UX Desiginer
Feeney Technologies, LLC
- Managed the project, providing a timeline, estimates, and milestones.
- Led design research and effectively communicated findings, conceptual ideas, and designs for cloud-based web applications.
- Created user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and production-ready designs.
Web Designer
Longtail Systems
- Built a brand identity guide, including typography and color system, images, and tone of voice.
- Led design research and effectively communicated findings, conceptual ideas, and designs for the company website.
- Created user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and production-ready designs.
- Developed the front-end portion of the website using HTML, CSS, and jQuery.
UI Designer (via Toptal)
Capsule
- Redefined the web application's architecture to optimize the UX, including the navigation, application screens, content on different screens, and user flows.
- Designed the wireframes to present new user flows and new architecture that significantly improved the UX and is now user-centered.
- Tested the new architecture and user flow on real users to ensure seamless UX.
- Designed the logotype and the complete brand style guide (colors, fonts, icons, and logotype usage).
- Defined the style guide for different elements in the web application so that the client can update the application in the future with new features according to existing element style guides.
- Devised the final UI design for a complete web application, which included 28 different screens.
- Prepared the UI specifications for development using the Zeplin app to make transferring the design to development much more manageable.
Education
Master's Degree in Information Technology, Business Systems Organization
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics - Zagreb, Croatia
Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics - Zagreb, Croatia
Certifications
Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals
Microsoft
Green Software for Practitioners (LFC131)
The Linux Foundation
Skills
Tools
Adobe, Adobe Photoshop, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Illustrator, AI Tools
Languages
HTML, CSS
Platforms
Figma, WordPress, Web, Mobile, iOS, WordPress Theme Design
Industry Expertise
Education, Marketing, Healthcare, Health & Wellness, Health, Banking & Finance, Information Technology
Other
Responsive Web Design (RWD), Dashboard Design, Web Architecture, Front-end, Design Systems, Responsive UI, Responsive Design, Landing Pages, Material Design, Material UI, Responsive Web Apps, High-fidelity Mockups, Dashboards, Responsive, High-fidelity Prototypes, Design, Responsive UX Design, Web Dashboards, Websites, UX Design, Web Design Strategy, User Flows, Web Design, Wireframing, UX Prototyping, User Research, Digital Strategy, Product Design, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Information Architecture (IA), Conversion-driven UX, Web Applications, eCommerce, eCommerce UX, Digital Design, UI Design, CSS3 Animation, Web App Design, Visual Design, Graphic Design, Website CMS, Web UX Design, Web UI Design, Website Redesign, Home Pages, Landing Page Design, Web App UX, UI Prototyping, UX Wireflows, User Journeys, B2B, B2C, Collaboration, Cross-functional Collaboration, Leadership, Layout Design, Design Workshops, UI Audits, Web Application Design, UX Wireframes, UX Strategy, Strategy, Content Management Systems (CMS), Website Builders, WYSIWYG Web Builders, Web App UI, Agile, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Usability, Interactive Prototypes, Accessibility, Research, Feature Prioritization, Design Leadership, Mobile First, Mobile-first Design, System Design, Mood Boards, MVP Design, Rapid Prototyping, User Stories, Mockups, Design Libraries, Component Libraries, Complex Problem Solving, Best Practices in Design, Style Guides, Elementor, Complex Application User Interfaces (UI), jQuery, App Design, Food Ordering Platforms, UX Process, Sitemaps, Web Development, WordPress Design, eCommerce Design, Branding, Prototyping, User Paths, SaaS, Fintech, WordPress Themes, Interaction Design (IxD), Brand Design, Brand Identity, UI Branding, Marketplaces, Brand Guidelines, Logo Design, Financial Design, Discovery Workshops, Presentation Design, Data Visualization, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Software as a Service (SaaS), Tourism, Consulting, Medical Device Management, Medical Applications, Calendar Rental Design, Invoice Management, Customer Management Applications, Rentals, Treasury, Children's Books, Children's Illustration, HubSpot, Web Application Architecture, Higher Education, Software, green software, Ecology, Climate Change, Business Systems, Desktop Web Design, Layout, Project Estimation, User Experience Design, Apps, WordPress Installation, Blog Design, Web UX, Messaging, Web Layout, Yoast SEO, SEO Tools, Mobile UX, Mobile Design, Conversion, UX Audits, Subscription Processing, Training & Training Content Development, Training, SaaS Design, Product Discovery, UX Research, Enterprise SaaS, Pitch Decks, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Copywriting, Web UI, Software QA, Back-end, Back-end Development, Product Development, Presentations, Communication, Project Management, IT Project Management, Public Speaking, Dashboard Development, Website Design, Business Intelligence (BI)
Experience
- Web Design - 11 years
- UI Design - 11 years
- UX Design - 11 years
- Websites - 11 years
- WordPress - 11 years
- Web App UI - 8 years
- Product Design - 8 years
- Web Applications - 8 years
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