Muwuso Mkochi
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since January 27, 2016
Muwuso is a multidisciplinary designer focusing on product design, brand development, and strategy. Over the past decade, he has led design in-house and remotely for some of the world's leading agencies and brands. The evolution of technology always inspired him, as well as its influence on human behavior and the resulting impact on societal and business environments and micro-cultures.
Work Experience
Senior Product Designer
Product Design and Strategy
- Worked remotely or in-house as the principal design lead for small and large product teams, agencies, and startups.
- Provided creative direction and design for SaaS and enterprise platforms, UI/UX, eCommerce, responsive web and mobile applications, content and community strategy, service design, brand strategy, and cross-functional team leadership.
- Handled branding and digital transformation, working with multinational retailers, niched product startups, and Fortune 500s in the FMCG, automotive, omnichannel retail, and beauty and care spaces.
Senior Product Designer
Zapier
- Handled automation, generative AI, NLP, and LLMs; designed interfaces and frameworks for chatbots, including spec grounding with engineers and creating logic flows.
- Contributed to AI-generated custom actions, in-editor version comparison, publish approval requests, custom error handling, change history, etc.
- Focused on improving taxonomy and hierarchical logic, reducing visual cognitive overload on the editor canvas, increasing real estate for formulating complex exceptions, and creating inheritable and scalable patterns.
Senior UI Design Mentor
CareerFoundry
- Mentored and provided industry and career guidance to design students and career changers for the ever-evolving digital workplace and world.
- Acted as a senior mentor and advised on curriculum and student growth.
- Supported 9/10 students' successful transition to new roles and careers in great companies around the world, that continue to rise.
Freelance Senior Interactive Art Director/Designer
Allan Gray, Pty., Ltd.
- Designed user experience flows, information architecture, and design systems for AG commerce and brand divisions.
- Focused on service outages, mitigating and re-routing client call center calls to online self-serve.
- Helped the lead designer define, prototype, and roll out a timely handover to development.
Freelance Digital Creative Director/Designer
Relais & Châteaux
- Provided creative direction, UX/UI, and interactive art direction for the Relais & Châteaux African travel platform with Rhino Africa Safari's content and community, user experience, and development teams.
Senior Interactive Art Director
VML
- Led integrated digital design projects and campaigns for brands such as L’Oreal Group, Old Mutual, Investec, Nedbank group, Jameson, Absolut, Vodacom, Chivas Regal, Sappi, Organ Donor Association of South Africa, TFG, Webber Wentzel Linklaters, South African Tourism, Sanofi Aventis, and Pernod Ricard, to name a few.
- Received over 43 local and international honors and awards including Agency of the Year.
Web Designer/Developer
Stonewall+
- Managed client side content management systems and designed, developed, and maintained marketing and advertising campaigns for FMCG, hospitality, and automotive brands.
- Worked with a variety of clients including Lexus, General Motors, Chevrolet, Opel, Isuzu, Nestle, Peermont, Liberty Group, Distell, and African Health Placements.
Graphic/Web Designer
Freelance
- Designed and developed corporate identities, personal branding, and websites for startups and small to medium businesses.
Certifications
Designing a Business
IDEO U
Business Innovation
IDEO U
Designing Strategy
IDEO U
Skills
Tools
Adobe CC, Slack, Sketch, InVision, Adobe Creative Suite, Zeplin, Figma, Zoom, FigJam, Asana, Jira, FullStory
Languages
CSS, HTML
Platforms
Axure, iOS, Vercel
Other
Brand Guidelines, Strategy, UX Design, Interactive Design, eCommerce, Information Architecture (IA), Brand Development, Digital Strategy, Developer Relations, Responsive Frameworks, Prototyping, Brand Identity, User Experience (UX), Product Design, User Interface (UI), eCommerce Web Design, Mobile App Design, Branding, Interactive Prototypes, UI Design, Web Design, Art Direction, Visual Design, Creative Direction, Corporate Identity, Blog Design, Responsive Web Design (RWD), PowerPoint Design, Responsive Design, B2B, Mobile Design, Datadog, Business Strategy, Creative Strategy, Brand Strategy, Concept Development, Product Strategy, Strategic Planning & Execution
Experience
Tools
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