Hi 👋🏻
I’m michael.
I’m a self-taught product designer passionate about crafting intuitive systems that solve complex problems. In just 6 months, I developed the skills to create professional-grade designs that tell stories and deliver real-world impact.
My skills
Tools:
Figma (Expert)
React, Javascript, Typescript, HTML, CSS (Practical experience contributing code to Splidi’s front-end development)
Canva, Recraft (Supplementary Tools for Mockups and Presentation)
Google Workspace, Slack, Linear, and Github (Organization, communication, and task management)
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Envisioning, designing, and delivering consumer products from concept to completion.
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Balancing timelines, prioritizing features, and adapting to constraints.
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Prototyping, microinteractions, and usability optimization.
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Structuring complex systems into intuitive, navigable frameworks.
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Designing scalable systems with practical experience in front-end development. (React, Javascript, Typescript, HTML, CSS).
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Cross-functional teamwork with developers, stakeholders, and users.
My story
In mid-2024, I set out to teach myself product design. No formal education. No mentors. Just curiosity, determination, and countless hours of practice.
Driven by entrepreneurial ambition, I dove headfirst into creating an investment platform—an admittedly tricky first project. Starting with simple layouts in Figma, I quickly expanded my skills by tackling increasingly ambitious challenges, including designing complex, scalable systems for Splidi, my first real startup.
In just six months, I progressed from building my first basic interface to crafting professional-grade solutions that solve real-world problems. Now I’ve not only learned how to design a consumer product–I’ve built & designed an entire application multiple times.
This journey taught me more than just design—it taught me to think critically, embrace feedback, and create powerful systems that balance functionality with beauty. I didn’t just learn how to put pixels on a screen; I learned how to innovate.
The journey
I started designing out of necessity–I had a vision for a startup company and no money to hire anybody. A developer friend of mine mentioned Figma. He told me, “You could use Figma to map out the UI. Actually, Figma will be too hard. You can just draw it.” I thought, “Figma…too hard? Challenge accepted.” Below was my first ever design I created that week 6 months ago. It’s…charming?
My first ever Figma design from July, 2024. Wow.
My most recent desktop design, from December 2024 for a new freelance job I’m working on–designing an e-learning platform. While in its infancy, it shows the unbelievable growth.
My design Philosophy & belief system
I have been a musician all my life–I’ve done it for fun, I’ve done it professionally, and it’s always been one of my greatest passions.
At the point I picked up design, I foolishly thought I had no chance of being talented. This is because I was a self-proclaimed trash visual artist until I started. It’s because I’m no good at drawing, really.
To draw a parallel to music, my skills were never the flashy ones–the ones that make people stop and say, “Wow, he’s an unbelievably phenomenal musician.” I’m not a Van-Halen-esque shredder, I’m not the new-age Beethoven on keys, and I’m certainly no Jaco Pastorious on the bass.
My visible skill, however, is that I can do them all well–but that doesn’t even reflect what I’m best at. My strongest ability has always been to understand music as the abstract system it is, rather than a technician based craft.
Below is a link to one of my favorite songs I’ve produced. Now most listeners will listen to it, and they’ll either like it, or they won’t. They may classify it by genre, or they may say “It sounds like [insert song here']”. If you listen to it as a musical system-thinker, however, what you can start to discern is the systemic makeup of the individual pieces.
“ I’m designing a creative system for a positive outcome–while accounting for all of the possibilities. My favorite part of design is optimizing this system with other people in mind.”
A professor of mine at USC once said “the best productions fill all the subdivisions”–meaning the songs that were produced the best had different instruments fill a variety of different rhythms–quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc. The validity in this is it does, in fact, make a song groove. I tried out the philosophy on this song, and it became one of my most compelling pieces.
That, inherently, is the fascinating part. How can something so abstract, wildly niche, and yet glaringly specific be so consequential in creating an effect as universal as the feeling listeners get from the song? It is because that is simply how creating music works. All that to say–this is how I approach product design.
Design is simultaneously about the tiniest of minutia, and the biggest of pictures. Design is person you were thinking about as you worked on the color palette, and it’s the hex code you settled on. In these ways–to me–it’s fundamentally the same as music. I’m designing a creative system for a positive outcome–while accounting for all of the possibilities. My favorite part of design is optimizing this system with other people in mind.
So my aforementioned thought that I stood no chance of being a designer was a fallacy. I always have been a designer–I’ve just been using a different medium.
Long story short, I’m a huge music nerd and now a major design geek.
Reach out.
If my work resonates with you or you'd like to collaborate, feel free to drop me a message!
