My story and how I work
Hello, I'm Andrew.
I'm a technically inclined designer that specializes in implementing modern design systems and enterprise feature work. I have a diverse background spanning various industries and types of products... of which the challenges are often quite similar, just said in different languages.
I formally studied design at UCLA and invested much time in learning programming, including C++, Java, Processing, Javascript, PHP/MySql, and particularly with the building blocks of websites... HTML and CSS. Surprisingly, I often find HTML and CSS to be the most neglected of skills, perhaps because it requires the most visual and design thinking to properly harness. Knowing just enough often results in some of the most frustrating technical debt when dealing with complex products and large development teams.
My professional career has led me to top tech companies, iconic advertising agencies, successful startups (and some failed ones), fintech, biotech, computer hardware, mushroom farms, and all sorts of unique small businesses.
Design systems
The latter part of my career has brought me to the world of design systems, which have dramatically changed since the days when they were simple style guides. Now, they are tightly woven into frontend development and current design tools like Figma. Most notably, and what I consider to be its defining characteristic, is the separation of the literal visual qualities of an element from it's functional purpose in the user experience, and from it, deriving a scalable naming schema. The challenge then comes to create a harmonious ecosystem, that can support multiple platforms, and any foreseeable future features, in as succinct a framework as possible. When done well, design systems removes significant redundant steps from the product cycle and keeps the work highly consistent and compliant. It can often increase velocity from both design and development anywhere from 3-5x in my experience, and the required work focuses more on the creative problem solving aspects. To me its the most interesting thing happening in product/app design at the moment, a true duet between design and development.
Knowing how to implement and maintain design systems has resulted in a drastically improved product process for myself. I'm able to ideate and handoff designs that lean into what the code naturally whats to do, tempered by the constraints of the production codebase. I'm often referred to as a developer ambassador, if I'm not outright handing off production ready code. All of this has thrust me into roles where I'm presenting and evangelizing to designers, developers, and executive leadership in how these new ways of doing can dramatically improve everyone's lives. I've been described as a swiss army knife, as I tend to come in quite handy in any part of the product cycle.
Thanks for stopping by, and don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything I can help with.
Companies I've worked for or with:
My career so far by the numbers
Average performance scores of the sites I currently build via Google Lighthouse
Performance
Accessibility
Best practices
SEO
Not getting lost in complexity or defaulting to the current standards... I value distilling every product challenge down to it's fundamental elements to the best of my ability. The industry moves fast, and often what's considered exemplary is the result of many compromises. I try to think freely and from a business perspective to find the most efficient path forward.
Often things are lost in translation between the worlds of design and development, with missed opportunities to dance in harmony. Knowing how things are made are crucial to the planning of them... like an architect that understands engineering and infrastructure needs of the building he aims to design.
"Andrew continues to be an incredible designer, systems thinker, developer collaborator, process optimizer, and problem solver." Celeste B.