Ilya Sizov
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since May 11, 2020
Ilya is a digital designer with more than a decade of experience in UI/UX, web, and mobile app design. His experience spans across digital agencies where he worked for clients like Unilever, Panasonic, WWF, among others to fast-paced international startups where he led marketing and product design. Ilya is passionate about crafting engaging experiences by means of appealing and polished visual design.
Work Experience
Design Lead
Smartcat
- Revised and solidified the brand identity, built cohesive and scalable guidelines to be used across all marketing communications (social media, newsletters, banner campaigns).
- Created the design system for the company’s marketing website; created and implemented UI components library that allows building new pages quickly and easily. Thanks to this easier content delivery process and mobile-friendly design system, the website traffic doubled rising from 50,000 to 110,000+ unique visitors monthly.
- Redesigned the newsletter templates and collaborated with developers to establish an easy-to-implement email component system.
- Implemented web UI improvements and visual guidelines for the company’s blog—helping it to grow the audience from 4,000 to 58,000 in ten months.
- Led the super-fast design of identity, website, emails, and other marketing materials for LocFromHome—the biggest online conference in the industry (2340 attendees from 97 countries, 34 speakers, and 12 hours of non-stop streaming).
Design Director
Fasten
- Led the complete overhaul of the mobile app for iOS and Android. The app was downloaded over 1 million times since the launch and had over 50,000 monthly active users.
- Redesigned the marketing website to align it with the values and culture of the company. The website, apart from giving all the necessary information, conveyed the idea of a new approach to ride-hailing where driver’s happiness was the priority and everyone benefited from it.
- Revised and updated the company identity guidelines to make the visual language more consistent, scalable, and easy to use.
- Art-directed numerous advertising campaigns, both online and offline, seen by hundreds of thousands of people. That included the remarkable marketing campaign of Fasten being the main SXSW-2017 ride-hailing partner.
- Led the improvements of the drivers’ app which included user research, user interviews, and quantitative data research alongside rethinking and redesigning the app for riders.
Art Director
Red Keds Creative Agency
- Art directed and designed Paratype.com—the biggest worldwide online store for Cyrillic fonts (selling over 1,000 fonts). Oversaw the UX research, the creative concept, and the UI design of the website. The project won bronze at the Tagline Awards in 2016 (one of the main Russian awards for accomplishments in digital development and advertising).
- Designed the Range Rover Evoque test drive experience. I was in charge of the promotional materials and app design. We built a new concept of a test drive that replaced regular registration with RFID technology. That turned a regular test drive into a party and involved more than 3000 participants.
- Art-directed the multiplayer browser game for Unilever. It was a fully-featured browser gaming experience that required coordination of multiple creative specialists including game designers, copywriters, illustrators, and interface designers.
- Played a critical role in building the agency’s annual conference about digital marketing and design: “Digital Silicone-free.” The identity that I created for the conference withstood the test of time and was being used annually as the conference became one of the most rewarded in the industry.
- Worked as a senior art director and contributed to building a unique design team and led the educational initiatives inside the agency that helped more than ten designers to thrive and do compelling work.
Education
Curator of the UX/UI Design Course in Creativity and Advertising
The School of Creative Thinking IKRA - Moscow, Russia
Postgraduate Diploma in Graphic Design
British Higher School of Art and Design - Moscow, Russia
Ph.D. in Philosophy
Moscow State University - Moscow, Russia
Skills
Tools
Figma, Sketch, Principle, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Apple Keynote, Google Workspace, InVision, Zeplin, Tumult Hype, Adobe After Effects
Platforms
Web, Webflow, iOS, Android, Mobile
Industry Expertise
Advertising, Education, Transportation & Shipping
Languages
CSS, HTML
Other
Web Design, UI Animation, Web UI, Web UX, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Landing Page Design, Website Redesign, Product Design, Mobile App UI, Web UI Design, UI Design, Creative Industry, Ad Campaigns, Promotional Websites, Landing Pages, Mobile UI, Mobile App Design, Tablet UI, User Flows, User Research, Presentations, User Experience (UX), Websites, Wireframing, Startups, Rideshare Services, Web Marketing, Portal Websites, UI Guidelines, Design Systems, Prototyping, UX Design, Mobile UX Design, Mobile UX, Mobile UI Design, Mobile Apps, UI Style Guides, Web Fonts, Type Design, eCommerce, Web App Design, Online Shopping, Shopping Carts, Design Guidelines, Component Libraries, UI Components, Web Portals, Web App UI, Web App UX, Identity Design, Visual Identity, Interactive Prototypes, Nonprofits, Advertising Campaigns, Advertising Design, Digital Advertising, Environment
Experience
- Web Design - 10 years
- Promotional Websites - 8 years
- UI Animation - 7 years
- Sketch - 6 years
- Figma - 4 years
- Product Design - 4 years
- Mobile App Design - 4 years
Tools
- Figma
- Sketch
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