James Robinson is a multidisciplinary design leader. His approach spans the full disciplinary gamut, integrating processes, disciplines, and teams to ship work that’s above and beyond, making sci-fi real and pushing the boundary of what people + tech can do together. Based in New York; designing everywhere.
Selected experience
A design-led strategy led to over $28M raised and over $20M in investment deposits just 6 months after founding
- Led foundational design vision as the first employee, helping close >$28M from top VCs like a16z in the first 6 months
- Directly hired and managed 6 employees and indirectly hired 20+ more, including senior leadership, growing the company to ~35
- As an exec leader, set company strategy, roadmap, etc. and led numerous company-wide initiatives from offsites to things like choosing a payroll provider
Redesigned not only our product vision but our product-building process enabled a successful exit
- Led a complete redesign of our myriad apps across numerous platforms, enabling a $40M fundraise
- Overhauled a gridlocked product design process, shipping product for the first time in over two years
- Co-led a multi-million-dollar multi-agency rebrand, enabling a pivot & acq. (by Oura) shortly thereafter
A new design architecture and refreshed product drove 3x improvement to key metrics
- As Eight’s first in-house UX designer, created a new design vision for the Eight Sleep app that drove double-digit-% improvement to key business metrics like NPS and CSAT and a 3x increase to key usage metrics in just a few months
- Built a multidisciplinary design function that aligned digital product, hardware, branding, packaging, design systems, and more into a single team, raising the company’s design bar and establishing design as a centralized discipline
- Won a Red Dot Design Award
Founded a new kind of enterprise D&I platform that let companies use real-time data to combat discrimination
Founded and led design for a B2B SaaS D&I startup, building a suite of research-backed products to disrupt bias and discrimination in real time.
+ design and strategy consulting for hundreds of clients
Design leadership for various freelance clients, delivering full-stack design and strategic consulting for product, brand, startup leadership, and more.
Recognition
Red Dot Design Awards
Pando Daily
& a tattoo on a user’s arm... 😬
Community Leadership
Design Executive Council, Founding Member
New Leaders Council, Fellow
Designer Fund Collective, Member
Round, Member
FORGE Design Studios at BU, Keynote Speaker (“Designing Products to be Forgotten”)
In/Visible Talks, Mentor Panelist
UXResult Design Hackathon, Judge
MDL Designathon, Keynote Speaker: “Interface-less UX: Thinking Beyond Screens”
ADPList Coffee Hours: Portfolio Edition #10 - Reviewing Design Portfolios
“James is an incredibly thoughtful designer with a unique ability to effectively structure and articulate complex ideas. He's consistently shown an ability to manage competing priorities in a dynamic environment while delivering quality work that never fails to impress and I'd recommend him to anyone who's looking for a designer who can handle anything you throw at him.”
Community involvement
Operating principles
Us and them; we, not me
The best work is done in teams, designing with, not for. Embracing diversity and being open to answers coming from anywhere is the heart of great design.
Start with why, not how
Design is best when it’s anchored in whys before getting into hows. When we understand the why, it’s much easier to go after the how.
Springs > rulers
Finding solutions that scale starts by thinking in variables. With design based on first-principles thinking, we stay fully responsive to learning more.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
Design isn’t a luxury that slows down building; it’s a direction-finding tool that makes us faster. Good design process is a speed enabler, not a slowing force.
Tell stories, design systems
While stories can inspire, these are usually outcomes of systems. Stories are powerful because they elicit empathy, but systems are powerful because they enable us to make sustainable impact.
Tempo, tempo, tempo
If you can control any variable—when, how, who, etc., when is the one to pick. By setting an ambitious pace, we ensure that we’re ready at the opportune time. Because there’s always an opportune time.
Data is a signal, not a design
Data is a signal, not a solution. It’s can be seductive to treat it as one, but when we do, we abdicate our responsibility to make a creative judgement.
Races are won in the last 10 yards
Design can elevate the performant to the delightful, and delight makes all the difference.
Leap, and the net will appear
Design is motivated by curiosity, so it thrives on managed risk. To make sci-fi real, you have to lead with curiosity and dream crazy ideas.
Life is short; insist on nice people
Great design feels like joy. Making it requires trust, teamwork, and excitement. Creativity needs room to breathe—psychological safety—and trust is a key expression of that. Trusting teams can do anything.
