Matthew Ortega
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Valencia, Spain
Toptal member since August 11, 2017
Matthew has been a designer for over seven years and continues to love what he does. Although he's worked in all design areas, he specializes in pixels and code. Matthew also runs a creative technology studio called Form & Void and the freelance design collective, Peopl. His clients have included Apple, Verizon, R/GA, Critical Mass, and Citibank.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Staff Product Designer
Unity
- Refreshed the core visual language for building apps at Unity.
- Built a 100-component design system library of components.
- Reorganized team processes to achieve increased design team velocity.
Product Designer
Handsome @ Unity
- Conducted team and stakeholder interviews and developed hypotheses for design team improvements.
- Developed a UI refresh that would be applied across the line of Unity products.
- Maintained and documented a large cross-platform design system that included spatial contexts.
Lead XR & System Designer
Verizon Media
- Created designs and prototypes with Framer, Unity, Three.js, and Blender.
- Maintained a multiplatform software development kit (SDK) and design system.
- Acted as the bridge between the design and development teams.
Freelance Lead Interactive Design (Remote)
Crowdtap
- Developed the dashboard and other screens UI and UX design.
- Defined the style guide for the UI elements based on a renewed version of branding.
- Created concepts and ideas for the iOS mobile app.
Freelance Interactive Designer
R/GA
- Worked on a project for one of the biggest telecommunications companies that aimed to redesign how the company acquires new customers.
- Was involved a major UX overhaul along with the implementation of a new visual identity.
- Participated in a faced-paced environment with a team of more than 20 people.
- Worked in a collaborative environment where UI and UX designers equally input on visual standards and flow design.
- Iterated quickly on designs within months—working in Sketch and testing prototypes in InVision and Principle.
Freelance Interactive Art Director
Apple
- Worked on the blue sky concepts for the revamp of the Apple online store.
- Implemented, in a small team, the changes to the marketing site for an upcoming launch.
- Was required to learn the entire design system and Human Interface Guidelines of Apple before starting on any live work.
- Worked with some of the best designers in the world.
- Worked on items that eventually ended up in front of Apple Executives.
Freelance Senior Designer
Critical Mass
- Relaunched, in a small team, a major banking app's design.
- Worked in an agile workflow, led design sprints, and built and tested clickable prototypes.
- Explored new ways to engage with customers, revised user flows, and worked on sections of the app.
- Participated in a fast-paced work environment—one-week sprints.
- Collaborated closely with developers to make sure that the designs were technologically feasible.
Designer
Barrel
- Worked as an interactive designer on projects spanning from identity design to web apps.
- Improved upon the workflow and tools used by the design team, along with giving presentations on new techniques in the design world.
- Often acted as a lead designer on project teams and took on some of the front-end development responsibilities when needed.
- Presented to clients on a regular basis; designers had a one-on-one relationship with clients to keep an open dialogue.
- Worked on small design teams that consisted of a designer, developer, and project manager.
Education
Certificate in Creative Technology
School for Poetic Computation: SFPC - New York City, NY, USA
Certificate in Interactive Telecommunications
New York University ITP - New York City, NY, USA
Continuing Education Certificate in Graphic Design
Parsons School of Design - New York City, NY, USA
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Art
Rutgers University - New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Skills
Tools
Principle, InVision, Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Framer Prototyping, Adobe Experience Design (XD), InVision App, Zeplin, Blender, Spline
Languages
HTML, CSS, Processing, Swift, Java, JavaScript
Industry Expertise
Creative Tech, Technology, Media, Fashion, Education, Health, Restaurants & Dining
Platforms
MacOS, Figma, iOS, Android, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
Other
UI Design, Consulting, User Experience (UX), App Design, eCommerce, iOS UI Design, Web Design, Mobile App Design, Branding, Mobile UI, PowerPoint Design, Web App Design, Prototyping, Logo Design, Strategy, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality App Design, OpenFrameworks, SwiftUI, Design Systems, Front-end Development, UX Design, Project Management, Web Development, Leadership, Social, Lifestyle, Publication, Beauty Products, Design, Curation, Training, Education Management Systems, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Apps, Illustration, Style Guides, Wellness, Concepting, Product Design, Training & Training Content Development, Unity, Framer, User Interface (UI), Docusaurus, Spatial Design, React, Creative Coding, Graphic Design, Visual Art, Digital Media, Bezi
Experience
- Web Design - 15 years
- Mobile App Design - 15 years
- UI Design - 8 years
- User Experience (UX) - 8 years
- Figma - 6 years
- React - 5 years
- JavaScript - 5 years
- Spatial Design - 3 years
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