about austin.

I'm Austin👋🏻. I'm a digital product designer with a strong belief in simplicity, delightful interactions, and human-centered design. I craft digital experiences for the web and native OS applications, specializing in UI/UX design and frontend development. My process pairs user research and usability testing with design systems thinking, accessibility standards, and hands-on frontend implementation. I currently work for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation as their Web, UX/UI Designer & Frontend Developer, and I ship my own apps on the side.

If you're interested in working together, have feedback for this site or any of my works, or just want to say "hey," please feel free to get in touch!

my philosophy.

useful.

Good design starts with understanding the people who'll use it. It also involves creating experiences that are actually useful and solve problems. This involves talking with users, learning where they get stuck, obtaining feedback and letting what I learn shape the work.

simple.

Simplicity isn't a style. It's what's left after you understand the problem well enough to remove what doesn't serve it. Clear interfaces come from clear thinking about what people actually need.

delightful.

The best moments in software are small: an animation that makes an action feel real, a detail that shows someone was paying attention, a bit of whimsy where you didn't expect it. Delight isn't decoration, it's evidence that someone cared. That someone put craft into the product they designed.

beautiful.

Beauty in an interface comes from restraint and precision. Considered type, deliberate spacing, and a clear hierarchy do more than make something look good, they make it easier to read and easier to use. When an interface is genuinely well made, people notice, even if they can't say why.

my story.

It all started in middle school when my dad handed me a copy of photoshop. I fell in love with the program and it’s ability to alter imagery. Arranging digital shapes and typography to make my own unique compositions became my favorite pastime. I soon found myself designing myspace avatars, facebook cover photos and album artwork for my all of my friend's and their many bands. I was in love with the craft of digital design.

I went to Michigan State University and studied Interactive Web Design with a specialization in Design. I redesigned and developed the website for two different film clubs, worked with my college’s design street team, helped out non-profits with rebranding their digital identities, joined forces with three different startups that were developing iOS apps, and lead the design for the Michigan State Hackathon, Spartahack.

As a student I also worked for Matrix, a digital humanities web design studio as a designer and developer. After graduation, they hired me as a full time employee, where I then worked as their Lead UX/UI Designer and Developer. At Matrix I translated complex user flows into simplistic, delightful, and intuitive visual user interfaces; developed high fidelity prototypes in order to collaborate design vision between project managers, clients developers and designers; worked closely with development teams to ensure that the visual design and experience is properly implemented from concept to reality; and developed the frontend for many of Matrix’s public facing sites.

After 7 years at Matrix, I was ready for a new challenge, and shortly found myself working for the State of Michigan, for the department that runs the Pure Michigan Campaign, also known as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), as their Web, UX/UI Designer & Frontend Developer. Here my role is designing visually engaging web experiences to attract Michigan businesses and tourism prospects. I analyze web analytics, craft wireframes and high-fidelity visual prototypes, develop an organizational design library/system, and write frontend code. All while collaborating closely with project stakeholders and developers to ensure a cohesive design vision.

my interests.

Outside of work, I've been building my own iOS apps. It started as a way to keep experimenting and grow my skillset, and it turned into shipping a book tracking app on the App Store, running builds through TestFlight, and reading through user feedback to decide what changes next. Designing something, building it, and then hearing from the people using it has taught me more than any side project I've taken on.

When I'm not designing or developing, you'll usually find me walking, running, reading, or playing a board game or video game. Sci-fi is my favorite genre in just about anything, with fantasy close behind. Right now I'm reading The Enchanted Greenhouse and playing Hades II.