Senior Product Designer, Design Systems at Cisco
May 2023 — Now
- Contributor to the Magnetic Design System Figma library.
Resume
I am a hybrid product designer and front-end engineer specializing in design systems design, development, and management — helping designers and developers build SaaS products at scale from small startups to large corporations.
Recent Experience
Senior User Interface Designer, Design Systems at City National Bank
Nov 2022 — Mar 2023
- Lead designer and contributor to the Roxbury Design System — responsible for the direction, oversight, and support of the design system utilized by several teams (and growing) within City National Bank to build its suite of products efficiently.
- Researched internal products to find opportunities to leverage the design system.
- Improved color system documentation with a focus on accessibility.
Senior Design Technologist at First American
Mar 2021 — Nov 2022
- Primary manager and contributor to the Ignite Design System for the Ignite application suite — including oversight and support of direction and processes of the design system.
- Design token, pattern, component, (Angular) front-end production code, and documentation contributions to the design system's UI kit, component library, and Storybook.
- Established design and coding best practices for product design and engineering teams to help scale design and increase velocity for business initiatives.
- Evangelization of design systems, systems design thinking, and tool support for designers and engineers.
- Created a new color system with more hue variations for flexible pairings that better meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility contrast standards.
- Created a design token system structure to better support the component library and applications.
- Invented methodologies for automating front-end procedures to enhance efficiency and minimize potential hazards.
- Converted the Ignite Design System Sketch UI kit to a Figma library UI kit and supported new Figma designers in the Sketch-to-Figma migration.
Senior UI Developer at Boulevard
Sep 2019 — Feb 2021
- Created Boulevard's design system — BLVD UI, including a Figma UI kit, React component library, and encompassing design and technical documentation.
- Developed a systems-driven design & development process for end-to-end design and development for the design system integration.
- Designed a documentation website to provide instructions and guides on how to utilize Boulevard's APIs.
- Established a design token system portable to CSS and Javascript.
UX/UI Engineer at Brainbase
Oct 2018 — Sep 2019
- Inherited a complex front-end codebase with technical debt and laid the foundation for a framework with reusable and scalable components built in Angular, Sass, and Bootstrap to improve code quality and increase velocity.
Product Designer at Taboola
Oct 2016 — Feb 2018
- Led product design on Taboola's publisher-focused analytics dashboard, Taboola Newsroom — assisting editorial teams at well-known publications such as Oath/AOL, NBC, and New York Daily News by surfacing actionable data including performance insights, metrics, and recommendations on the publishers' articles in real-time.
Product Designer at Fullscreen Media
Oct 2015 — Jun 2016
- Designed and launched Fullscreen's video platform bringing original Fullscreen and licensed content catering to young adults.
- Redesigned Fullscreen Go from the ground up, a semi-automated online application that allows YouTube creators to apply and formally partner with Fullscreen in minutes.
Front-End Engineer at Fullscreen Media
Dec 2013 — Oct 2015
- Led efforts on Fullscreen's Ruby on Rails component library and style guide for their web-based products including Creator Platform and Fullscreen video platform.
- Bridged efforts between product design and engineering teams as a liaison to help bridge communication and collaboration.
UX/UI Designer at Fullscreen Media
Sep 2012 — Dec 2013
- Defined, designed, and built Fullscreen's internal tools utilized to manage content creators and contracts.
Education
University of Central Florida
Aug 2003 — Feb 2005
- Digital Media, concentration in Interactive Media Design (did not complete degree requirements).
Associate of Arts at Tallahassee Community College
Jan 2002 — Jul 2003
- Major in General Studies
Skills
Expertise
- Design Systems
- Systems Thinking
- Systems-Driven Design & Development
- Design Token Management
- Product Design
- Accessibility
- Iconography
- Prototyping
Tools and Technologies
- Figma
- Figma Token Studio
- Sass & CSS
- CSS-in-JS
- React
- Storybook
- Style Dictionary
- Angular
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Git
Drop me a line
Please feel free to contact me regarding consulting inquires, or just to say hello.
me@chrisgriffin.org