Daniel de Paola
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
London, ON, Canada
Toptal member since April 17, 2017
Daniel is a senior designer and art director who has worked with some of the industry's most innovative companies over his 20-year career. Some of these include creating and delivering captivating mobile apps at Payfare and TribalScale and user-friendly websites at Rocket Homes Real Estate and RBC. Daniel's diverse portfolio showcases his ability to bring any project to life—having honed his skills in various digital agencies and companies like Xello and Bemobi.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Product Designer
Soneil International Ltd.
- Designed the whole experience for the electric vehicle chargers, with dual charging plugs, and the kiosk version for parking spaces. An 11-inch screen, using Material UI, with dual dashboards for the charging progress.
- Created the design system using Material UI as a base to maintain consistency across the three products: charger, kiosk, and mobile app.
- Redesigned the mobile app used by customers to track the charging progress.
Product Designer
Accept Me 4 Me, Inc.
- Redesigned a dating web app's experience, from the mobile onboarding screens to the chat and preferences.
- Organized and updated the design system, creating new and more efficient components.
- Collaborated closely with the product manager and the two founders to understand objectives and reach the goals of the MVP.
Product Designer
Alejandro Diaz
- Developed a combination of Twitter, Instagram, iMessage/WhatsApp, and TikTok in just one app. The MVP was one of the most challenging projects I've worked on due to its size. Roughly 95 screens are to be done in three weeks.
- Complied with the client's MVP specifications. The client already had an MVP of an MVP design combined with screenshots of other app features to be added.
- Created user flows and small research to ensure the client understood what an MVP should look like, but they were solid on their beliefs.
Product Designer
Arijan Hasanaj
- Designed a barcode scan app for ingredient analysis. It loads products or food ingredients and informs the users which are good or bad for their health.
- Created a feature where the app recommends healthier products than the ones the users scanned, with an option of a marketplace to purchase those products.
- Delivered wireframes for the MVP screens, with the pursuit of investment to begin the product.
Mobile App Designer
Landing International, Inc
- Worked with this client in 2022 and I was hired again as a product and design consultant for its new features, such as AI integration, brand platform, new and robust search tool, and more.
- Managed the junior designer during the whole process, the one I helped hire in 2022.
- Participated in meetings twice a week to help with the roadmap of features, user research, product discovery, design systems, and design requirements.
Product Designer
Zipsmart Inc.
- Worked closely with the founder and five developers since day one to bring the concept of connecting weather forecasts with the real estate map.
- Integrated with AI to provide buyers and sellers with actionable insights using visual data representation such as charts, graphics, heat maps, colors, and copy.
- Designed a responsive version of the SaaS software platform and landing page.
Product Designer
Nestigotravel.com
- Engaged as a product designer for a web app hosting platform for a self-funded, early-stage startup to help with their bold idea to fight Airbnb and solve their users' pain points by providing more benefits for guests and hosts.
- Delivered the landing page design using Framer to speed up the publishing process and attract users' interest.
- Designed the MVP on Figma, focusing on guests' and host account creation and listing a place, search, filter, and booking process.
Product Designer
Juno - Matchmaking & Dating
- Delivered designs for an iOS dating app with a whole new approach, i.e., using the zodiac and constellations as its core feature to try and match soulmates.
- Designed the app, which features a chart where users can compare interests, likes, and dislikes, ensuring a deeper connection.
- Collaborated closely with the founders and a team of four to evolve their idea based on a previous wireframe.
Product Designer
Sparkr Industries, LLC
- Worked closely with the two founders on a dating app project to translate the business plan and list of priorities into the MVP screens.
- Designed the experience, predicting future features to present them to potential investors.
- Built the component library to keep everything on Figma and easy to hand off to developers.
UI Designer
IUE TECHNOLOGIES INC
- Collaborated closely with the CEO to discern clients' preferences and meticulously crafted a sophisticated, user-friendly interface for an upscale timepiece marketplace.
- Spearheaded the development of an immersive user interface for a responsive fundraising web application and a television app designed to track donation metrics seamlessly.
- Operated as a versatile white-label solution. This project demanded a commitment to accommodating diverse styles and brand identities.
Visual Designer
Akal Design Technologies Inc.
- Redesigned the app based on the client's references while keeping the cultural aspect of the product.
- Worked with the dark theme style as per the client's request. He wanted to keep within the dark approach.
- Navigated working with a religious client with a completely different culture from mine.
UX/UI Designer
SMK Digital Ltd
- Designed the MVP for a legal professional's mobile application based on requirements, meetings with clients and developers, user data, and research.
- Used ChatGPT AI to bring two features to life that helped users foresee and predict their career paths toward their personal and professional objectives.
- Worked with a library of components based on the semantic naming convention as per developer guidance and focused on agility during the development phase.
UI/UX Designer
Qdeck
- Collaborated closely with Qdeck's product managers to elevate the user experience, undertaking a comprehensive table and data design exploration. This initiative was driven by the substantial content volume within their investment panels.
- Championed Qdeck's inaugural design system, forging a collaborative dance with engineers to ensure a symphony of scalable, user-centric components. Together, we orchestrated a design language that sings.
- Used cutting-edge AI components to breathe life into Qdeck QAdvisor, an intelligent companion tailored exclusively for Qdeck's clients. We ushered in a new era of personalized assistance by crafting a seamless blend of innovation and intuition.
Mobile App Designer
Landing International, Inc
- Designed the v2 of the mobile app and worked on some features of the partner's platform (responsive).
- Managed and helped hire another junior designer to help the client fill the project hours since I was working part-time.
- Built the mobile app's design system and helped maintain and create the strategy with the team.
UI/UX Designer
SSH Mining LLC
- Overlapped daily with the three partners to work on the crypto mining platform's designs, wireframes, design systems, prototypes, and user flows.
- Created the responsive grids for the application and designed the features mobile-first.
- Set the stage for future features for the application based on the product roadmap.
Product Designer (UX/UI)
Pine Street Labs, Inc. dba Beacon
- Collaborated with PO and CTO to evolve the design system previously created by another designer and explore options for landing pages and new pages.
- Worked on responsive design for all new features and pages such as listing details, dashboard, application tracker, and many others.
- Overlapped three times a week, for about two hours, with the PO to have everything aligned with the roadmap.
Designer
Nimar Bangash
- Designed the wireframes, MVP prototype, and visual elements from scratch, as a designer with experience in investment platforms for web app prototypes.
- Worked with the CEO on the product's vision and roadmap.
- Designed the UI and MVP user flows to build the pitch deck for a round of seed/angel money.
Product Designer
Mastering Diabetes, LLC
- Worked with the client on a healthcare-related project (web app and mobile app) with UI explorations based on their brand and website content.
- Designed around 15 different flows and interactions to understand the user's behavior and how to communicate the content to the client.
- Worked directly with the CEO, CMO, and CPO to build the product roadmap and future features.
Lead Designer
Payfare
- Led the design team by mentoring two junior designers and creating the processes, organization, and structuring the files, templates, and cadences.
- Surfaced the pods across the company to ensure everything and everyone was on the same page and level of consistency.
- Worked with white-label solutions for clients like Uber, Wise, DoorDash, ArtistGrowth, Eat Club, QikEarn, Talipay, and other gig platforms.
UX/UI Designer
Raziel Katz
- Researched Jewish people's costumes and religion to understand how to properly communicate across the app and between the app pages.
- Worked with the client on their wireframe and MVP to improve the UX and UI of the app.
- Built their first prototype to start doing user interviews and user testing to gather data.
UI Designer
ATH Digital LLC
- Took the work from a previous designer and helped the client with improvements to take their dashboard to a new level of experience.
- Designed the dashboard experience with a responsive mindset from 4K resolutions down to the mobile browser.
- Created a whole set of charts, tables, and card components to make it easy to evolve the CMS.
UI/UX Designer
Hashed Inc.
- Mentored two junior designers who were working full-time for the client, helping them to understand how to build a design system, user flows, wireframes, and prototypes using Figma.
- Worked with the client on the product vision and future versions.
- Established the visual patterns based on the client's logo to make it easy for the designers to move forward with the work.
Lead Designer
TribalScale
- Led the product design team of five (another senior, two intermediates, one junior); helped the VP of product on the hiring process and selection of designers to join the team; helped to structure the design process with the new team.
- Participated in most scoping sessions to estimate how long a designer would work in a respective project after the requirement meetings, helped PMs with allocation and proposals.
- Created best practices documents for file organization within Figma, best practices for tasks, stories, and spaces creation on ClickUp; also responsible for maintaining our design team health within ClickUp.
- Facilitated workshop sessions with the team, one-on-one with peers to understand their momentum and help with anything needed.
Senior Product Designer
Rocket Homes Real Estate
- Worked as a lead designer of the Owing Journey creating features like property reports and market trends reports, to help homeowners to understand the perfect timing to sell or not to sell their homes.
- Helped the design team to enhance their design system, file organization, and file management using Sketch Cloud.
- Collaborated with product owners, UX researchers, and product managers to understand user journeys.
- Helped user researchers to create user interviews, user testing, evaluating results, and interpreting data to build a better experience for the homeowners.
Mobile UI/UX Designer
Fisheye LLC
- Helped the clients with their brand, product roadmap, vision, and strategy.
- Designed the user flow, wireframes, and MVP prototype focusing on the investor round.
- Designed the UI and design system to make it easy for the client to keep on building the product.
Mobile App UX Designer
DagMaz Solutions LLC
- Worked together with the clients to improve their UX based on their own wireframes.
- Designed the design systems, component library, prototypes, and user flows.
- Created the UI based on their brand from scratch, helping the client to escalate it.
Senior Mobile UI Designer
RBC
- Collaborated with digital directors to create concepts for future mobile banking products.
- Worked closely with UX researchers, UX writers to enhance RBC's mobile features and apps.
- Supported product manager's chapters with presentations and design solutions.
- Helped mortgage team to build concepts for a better experience through the mortgage journey.
Senior Product Designer
Xello
- Worked as a lead designer on the mobile team, bringing more than five years of experience in mobile design to enhance Xello's UX to help students in their successful futures.
- Helped the design director with the hiring process, team building, and mentoring and onboarding new designers to the team.
- Delivered detailed prototypes using InVision and Sketch, to help on user interviews, user testing, feature validation, design QA, always working closely with developers and product managers.
- Designed specific features of the educators' admin app and building a better experience for reports, emails, lesson creation, and more tools.
Senior Mobile Designer
Bemobi
- Designed mobile native apps, web apps, and responsive solutions for Brazil's largest phone carriers. Worked on pre-paid reload solutions, media download, news apps, adult content apps, sports news, and more.
- Designed the first subscription-based app store for Android phones in Brazil, where consumers would pay a small amount in their phone bill to have access to thousands of unlocked apps through their phone carriers.
- Mentored junior designers on their career paths within the company.
Designer Consultant
Omelete
- Was responsible for Omelete's redesign in 2013 after the website had its visuals for more than a decade. Hired as a design consultant working two days a week in the offices in São Paulo and three days working remotely from Rio de Janeiro.
- Delivered wireframes using OmniGraffle, and multiple versions of prototypes using InVision and Photoshop.
- Worked closely with COO, CEO, and content writers to understand how to create a whole new user experience based on content consumption of the largest pop culture website in Brazil.
Senior Product Designer
Zoom
- Hired, as the first designer ever, in 2010 to build Zoom's very first website and experience. At that time, Zoom was just a small eCommerce website search with the goal to be the best price comparator tool in Brazil.
- Helped the COO with the design hiring process and lead the team of two junior product designers and two junior marketing designers to have Zoom's level of excellence aligned.
- Delivered important prototypes using InVision and HTML structures, that way helping with user testing, user interviews, persona creation, and design thinking.
Senior Art Director
Oficina Interativa
- Was responsible for creating not only websites redesigns but also SaaS solutions for those companies.
- Led and mentored a team of four designers, helping them to grow and achieve results as a team.
- Created marketing websites using Flash to sell condos, apartments, houses on the launch of the site for the companies.
Education
Diploma in Web Design and Digital Systems
Estácio de Sá University - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Certifications
Leadership for Creatives
Domestika
From Superpowers to Great Teams
IDEOu
Hello Design Thinking — Learn the Foundational Skills and Mindsets of Design Thinking
IDEOu
Facilitating UX Workshops
Nielsen Norman Group
Visual Communication
Infnet
Skills
Tools
InVision, Sketch 3, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Sketch, Sketch 4
Platforms
Mobile, Apple, Web, Android, iOS, Mapbox
Industry Expertise
Real Estate, Health, Fitness, Education Technology (Edtech), Banking & Finance, Social Networking, Consumer Products
Other
Design, UI Design, Product Design, UX Design, Presentation Design, Pitch Decks, Presentations, Fintech, Mobile Apps, Prototyping, Responsive Design, Responsive Web Apps, Mobile App Design, Mobile App UI, Responsive Web Design (RWD), SaaS Design, Wireframing, App UX, Mobile UX, Web UX, Web UI, App UI, Mobile Design, UI Components, B2C, B2B, WebApp, MVP Design, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Web App Design, Web Design, Visual Design, User Flows, Landing Page Design, Product Launch, Landing Pages, Lean Startups, Mockups, Startups, Design Leadership, User Stories, Design Principles, User Workflows, App Design, Web Portals, UX Strategy, Design Strategy, Leadership, eCommerce, eCommerce Design, Mobile Payments, Wellness, Design Thinking, Dashboards, Data Visualization, eCommerce UI, eCommerce UX, Design Systems, Interactive Prototypes, Framer, Legal, AI Design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), No-code Development, Social Media Design, Social Media, System Design, Product Owner, UI Prototyping, Money Transfers, Apps, K-12 Education, Website Redesign, Pop Culture, Redesign, Gamification, Mobile Game UI, Mobile Game UX, Mobile Games, Mobile UI, Mobile UI Design, Finance, Mobile Banking, Online Banking, Digital Payments, Websites, Digital Media, Interaction Design (IxD), UX Workshops, Ideation Workshops, Childcare, Toys & Children's Products, Messaging, Mobile Money, Dating Apps, Social, Social Networks, iOS UX Design, iOS UI Design, Crypto, Cryptography, Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency Wallets, Dark UIs, Web Dashboards, Dashboard Design, Responsive, Responsive UI, CMS Made Simple (CMSMS), Data, Data-driven Design, Data-informed Visual Design, Financial Design, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Financial Transactions, Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Online Dating, Mobile UX Design, Health IT, Fitness Trackers, Public Health, Web App UX, Web App UI, Investing, Mining, Digital Banking, Digital Health, User Journeys, Iterative Design, Logo Design, Journey Mapping, UX Wireframes, Layout, Style Guides, Software as a Service (SaaS), Marketplaces, Search, DataViz, Commercial Real Estate, UI Maps, Social Media Apps, Conversational Design, Conversational UI, SaaS, Product Discovery, Beauty Products, Mobile eCommerce, UX Research, Automotive Design, Electric Cars
Experience
- SaaS Design - 10 years
- Product Design - 10 years
- Dashboards - 7 years
- Figma - 5 years
- Mobile Design - 5 years
- Design Systems - 5 years
- Fintech - 4 years
- Framer - 3 years
Tools
- Figma
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