Freelance Lead-Product UX/UI Designer, Advisor, and Creative Director
2017 - 2020
Clients (via Toptal)
- Led product design for dozens of projects (B2B/B2C, SaaS, fintech, healthcare, medicare, travel & leisure, food, education, retail, and social products), serving established corporations and exciting startups by following a user-centered design approach (UX/UI), intensive design thinking, prototyping, and testing.
- Championed UX/UI improvements to existing products (web & mobile apps, responsive websites, and wearables) as well as getting involved in a very early project phase, handling the work during the entire product cycle—from concept to final execution while working hand-to-hand with PMs and Engineers.
- Conducted competitive and comparative analysis, user and customer interviews synthesized results and defined requirements for various products in different stages to validate user experience and business sustainability.
- Outlined critical paths in the user journeys and discovered bottlenecks that inhibit the user's experience while ideated on core concepts through highly interactive design prototypes.
Technologies: Adobe xD, Google Suite, Figma, Sketch, Framer, InVision, Anima, Zeplin, Validately, UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, Miro Board, Zoom, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Trello, Asana, Google Analytics, White Boarding
Freelance Lead-Product UX/UI Designer, Advisor, and Creative Director
2015 - 2020
Self-employed
- Helped design dozens of new digital products for Fortune 500 executive brands and global startups. Provided services include UX research, product strategy, design thinking, ideation, product design, and implementation.
- Designed specific outputs for different industries, included mockups, interactive products, heuristic evaluations, user personas, empathy maps, multi-variant testing, interactive prototypes, animations, and videos.
- Implemented UX research practices include multiple variant testing, A/B testing, usability testing, observation, system usability scale, user flows, user journeys, and storyboarding.
- Worked as a sole product designer for top-tier European VC firm and collaborated closely with PMs and engineers with an agile process, funding of $164 million.
- Led the product design (UX/UI for a web platform and mobile app; both Android and iOS) of JOBSbnb, an innovative premium talent-human resources Marketplace that addresses the tourism and catering industry needs for permanent or urgent hiring of personnel at all specialties. It won two silver awards during the Mobile Excellence Awards 2019 for digital innovation through the mobile & innovative mobile application/startup company 2019.
Technologies: Adobe xD, Google Suite, Figma, Sketch, Framer, InVision, Anima, Zeplin, Validately, UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, Miro Board, Zoom, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Trello, Asana, Google Analytics, White Boarding
Lead Product Designer
2019 - 2019
Advanced Platform for Brain Health
- Led and participated in discovery phases from ideation, design thinking, and user research to interviews, customer journey mapping, service blueprinting, user story mapping, wireframing, and testing.
- Co-created workshops with stakeholders.
- Established the design strategy, design process, and team composition on the project.
- Collaborated with the project owner to help to define product vision and product strategies.
- Created and maintained design systems.
- Handled product design, including research, interaction design, visual design, interactive prototyping, and usability testing.
- Handled all designs and deliverables.
Technologies: Sketch, Framer, InVision, Anima, Zeplin, Validately, UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, Miro Board, Zoom
Creative Director | UX/UI Team Lead
2016 - 2017
Generation Y (Gynext.com)
- Created and led a team of UX/UI designers on the most fast-growing creative and development agency in Eastern Europe with 2,500+ active projects and over $10 billion in client’s revenue.
- Tasked to revamp and staffed the design vertical and re-establish the agency's design strategy to improve quality and spread awareness in the market.
- Provided creative direction, set the strategy, and led hundreds of projects for different B2B/B2C industries, including but not limited to pharmaceutical, financial, travel, and eCommerce retail involving user experience, user interface, branding, and marketing campaigns for Europe's biggest brands and most innovative startups.
- Co-owned and managed daily scrum and weekly standup meetings with designers, PMs, and engineers while overseeing and often contributing to the digital creative work.
- Contributed to pitches and creative business development, co-owned design workshops, and co-presented design events and forums while guided and mentored designers and front-end developers.
- Coordinated the creative efforts on numerous successful development wins, meeting, presenting, and pitching clients.
- Oversaw the design and creative direction, concept development, branding, and visual identity, advertising, content development, UI and UX design, campaign development, digital experiences, product strategy, cross-platform storytelling, content strategy, design thinking, video productions, 360º activation, typography, motion graphics, print production, and more.
- Participated in board and C-level meetings to sync and ensure a smooth collaboration between the different verticals and worked closely with the CMO, CTO, and the CEO (a brilliant business mind and co-founder of the company, Mr. Spanidis).
- Improved company awareness (+71%), racked up 31 national and international awards and nominations as a top service company, including 16-design-related awards and nominations as a result of the design work. The company has been expanded to nine offices across four different continents.
Technologies: Sketch, Photoshop, App Demos, InVision, Principle, Keynote, OptimalSort, Chalkmark
Global Design Director | UX/UI Team Lead
2009 - 2015
Airfasttickets
- Served as the only designer on the team between 2010-2011, contributing to the company's success from day zero and promoted to a Global Design Director, UX/UI Team Lead, set the strategy, led the UX, copywriting, design, and front-end teams between different countries.
- Championed continuous improvements to the user experience within the project teams and disseminated the UX/UI objectives, reasoning, and decisions while presenting products and services to the broader business stakeholders by demonstrating how these objectives will and do affect business results.
- Delivered the most efficient, engaging, innovative experience and pleasing designs (including but not limited to localized websites, mobile apps, SaaS, CRM Dashboards, and B2B platforms) to users while ensuring that the brand's key objectives are met.
- Designed the Travel Deals Phenomenon, a unique technology solution that sold 35,000 flight tickets in 48 hours and led to a long-term, exclusive collaboration with GROUPON, serving dozens of countries and changed the way the travel industry does business forever.
- Crafted world-class designs for web and mobile that led to 12 national and international awards and other nominations including but not limited to the travel industry's most admirable event, "Tourism Awards 2015" holding the "golden ticket" in the category Best Website & Booking Interface, and Best e-commerce design at EBGE Awards 2014 hosted by the International Association of Designers.
- Helped to grow the main booking platform from 0 to 375+ million monthly visits and $48.3 billion in gross bookings in 2014, optimizing core funnels such as posts created, increasing sign ups, and growing month-over-month retention.
Technologies: Sketch, Photoshop, App Demos, InVision, Keynote, OptimalSort, Chalkmark
Cryptocurrency iOS App and Web
Travel and Culinary Responsive Website
WHAT IF Product
Social Group Video Chat App
JetBlue Airlines | New App Design C.S.
Fintech | Bank App
Travel and Hospitality App
Giuseppe Zanotti | Fashion eCommerce
Travel Booking Engine
