Jake Kahana
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since August 18, 2017
Jake is an award-winning designer who uses storytelling, art, and technology to instigate positive social change and build stronger businesses. He's worked with a range of Fortune 500 companies, major nonprofits, government agencies, and startups. Over the last 10 years, Jake's work has helped these companies change their public image, reach broader audiences, and impact more lives. He'd love to collaborate with you on your next big challenge.
Experience
- Photoshop CC - 15 years
- InDesign CC - 15 years
- Illustrator CC - 15 years
- Art Direction - 11 years
- CSS - 10 years
- HTML - 8 years
- InVision - 5 years
- Sketch - 4 years
Tools
- Photoshop CC
- InDesign CC
- Illustrator CC
- Sketch
- InVision
Work Experience
Contract Designer
Johnson & Johnson
- Collaborated with a small team of designers and content strategists to plan a massive site migration of over 150 sites into a single platform.
- Designed dozens of template pages and content modules.
- Helped audit dozens of sites to generate content categories and organize information.
Freelance Visual and Experience Designer
Learnvest
- Built wireframes for new product features.
- Designed the UI for several new product features, working closely with the product and sales team.
- Ran user testing.
Freelance Lead Visual Designer
Cake and Arrow
- Led visual design to build two digital products for a large insurance company.
- Built prototypes for testing.
- Managed a junior designer.
Freelance Lead Product Designer
Philosophie
- Co-led visual design to build a financial web app that helps low-income families manage their money better.
- Ran design sprints and design studios for two months.
- Built prototypes for testing.
- Coded front-end design for the site using HAML and LESS for the app built with Ruby on Rails.
Creative Director
Matter Unlimited
- Grew the agency from three to nine people in less than two years.
- Built digital products for numerous clients including the Clinton Global Initiative, Unicef, and Facebook.
- Nominated for an Emmy and several Webby honoree awards.
- Managed a team of two full time creatives and a pool of freelance talent.
Lead Designer/Associate Creative Director
72andSunny
- Secured four new business pitches.
- Art directed the first Super Bowl spot the agency ever ran.
- Prototyped videos and products pitched to Samsung and Google.
- Awarded over a dozen awards including "Ad Agency of the Year" in back-to-back years.
Art Director
Deutsch
- Created multimedia campaigns for Playstation.
- Launched HTC brand with a global campaign.
- Contributed to securing three new business pitches.
- Designed all internal communications and event materials for the agency.
Education
Certificate in Leveling Up
Seth Godin's altMBA - Remote
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Arts, Graphic Design
University of Southern California - Los Angeles, California
Skills
Tools
Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Sketch, Premiere Pro CC, Adobe Creative Suite, Sublime Text, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Apple Keynote, Adobe After Effects, GitHub, InVision, After Effects CC, Zeplin, Sublime Text 3
Languages
HTML, CSS, Less, JavaScript, Haml, HTML5
Platforms
Figma, Craft CMS, WordPress
Industry Expertise
Technology, Banking & Finance, Pharmaceuticals, Health
Other
UX Design, UI Design, Digital Product Design, Digital Creative Direction, Web Design, Branding, Responsive Web Apps, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web UX, Web UI, Web UI Design, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Writing & Editing, Filmmaking, Graphic Design, Art Direction, Virtual Reality (VR), Front-end Design, Visual Design, UI Design Standards & Best Practices, Financial Products, Video Editing, Video Direction, Photography, Typography, Wireframing, Instagram, Social Media, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Apps, Facebook, Nonprofits, Information Architecture (IA), Iconography, Animation, Identity, Startups, Service Design, Unity3D AI, Videos, Responsive, Data Visualization, Design, Migration, UIKit, Pharmacy, System Design, System UI, FTP, Squarespace
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