Bobby Spiecher

Design Lead @Bobby Speaker

UX/UI DesignerProduct Designer🐦 DesignBrand Designer

Hi, I’m Bobby. I’m a San Francisco-based visual design lead with 18 years of experience building digital design systems steeped in brand. I specialize in UI design, visual design, brand ID, and system design, and am comfortable in hybrid UI/UX roles. My specialization is grounded in involvement at every part of the digital product design process over the course of my career. This includes design leadership, strategy, UX research, competitive analysis, user journeys, IA flowcharts, wireframes, UI design, design systems, user testing, interactive prototypes, brand ID, marketing, and illustration. I’m in my element transforming noise into patterns. One of my recent accomplishments is leading a systems approach for Dropbox's marketing assets and illustrations. I played a key role in devising the solution, presenting it to the organization, designing and building the library, and transitioning it to the design teams and third-party agencies. I am an effective communicator with a largely autonomous working style. I excel at organizing and executing comprehensive design solutions on a large scale. Whether it's managing teams or independently handling large, complex efforts, I am comfortable in both scenarios. I really enjoy visual systems work. I love determining the style, color palette, typography, logo, and visual language of brand ID. I love ingesting the brand and styles into UI design and translating that into scalable components. I find the tension and relationship between the expressive visual elements and the structured organization of the information in a design really beautiful. I love thinking about the context, the use cases, the design surfaces, and the challenge of building systems that scale seamlessly and deeply. I also love considering how to build these systems in a way that allows them to change and grow.

Feedback from Bobby’s ex-colleagues

Let me see

Keep in touch with meI'm using Intch to connect with new people. Use this link to open chat with me via Intch app

Work Background

Bobbyspeaker.comVisual Product Design Lead

Oct. 2010San Francisco Bay AreaI’ve been helping clients realize their product visions as a freelancer for 10+ years. I like to get excited with a client about their ideas. It’s important to gather requirements but it’s also important to hear about roadblocks. With a vision in mind I have a knack for putting disparate pieces together and identifying missing ones. I’ve helped clients by conducting competitive research and creating user journeys. With an extensive background in product design, I’m completely hands-on compiling UX research, creating wireframes, IA maps, UI designs, UI pattern libraries, and prototypes. I also create and expand brands. I dedicate my services to deliver fully branded, fully realized, impactful and scalable products.

InstrumentVisual Product Design Lead

Oct. 2021 - Mar. 2023Portland, Oregon, United States · RemoteAt Instrument, I optimized and built upon libraries for Salesforce and Meta and produced guidelines. I conceptualized and designed landing pages for Salesforce and other clients. I designed animation storyboards for Dropbox using the abstract UI library I created during my previous engagement with Dropbox. I optimized the integration of the Dropbox library into Instrument's Figma ecosystem.

DropboxVisual Design Consultant

Apr. 2020 - Oct. 2021San Francisco, California, United States · RemoteAt Dropbox, I spearheaded and led the solution of systematizing their marketing assets company-wide. I directed a team of designers to explore designs that scaled within a system and also adhered to the guidelines we defined. I built and rolled the library out across all design departments and third-party vendors. I worked closely with the creative director, product system lead, and head of the brand studio department to address business goals and understand requirements.

GaiamProduct Lead Designer

Feb. 2019 - Mar. 2020Greater Denver AreaAt Gaia (previously known as Gaiam), I have been involved in educating the organization about UX process and best practices. I have put a design process in place that supports the business KPI goals and also ensures product design longevity and scalability and follows agile. The product at Gaia is an SVOD social media platform that's a cross between Youtube and Netflix in the Yoga/Spirituality space. Duties & accomplishments: -Leading and empowering UX research around product improvements. -Collaborating with Product Managers to identify quarterly KPIs based on UX research. -Increased conversion by 37% with a holistic product solution around sharing and referrals which exceeded KPI goals in Q2. -Working with the Marketing Creative Director to integrate the emerging brand identity into product UI, illustrations, and iconography. -Ideating executions of branded UI and leading the product design team to execute within the vision. -Coordinating meetings with Stakeholders to gather requirements on feature requests and gather feedback on designs. Delegate feedback into tasks for the design team. -Establishing and leading an illustration and iconography style. -Working with Marketing Creative Director to adjust any brand guidelines for product to meet the latest WCAG accessibility requirements. -Establishing the foundation of a pattern library, educating and leading the design team in library building and maintenance. -Hands-on UI/UX designs for web and mobile of new product features and screens including global share module, account center (billing, profile info, notification settings, etc.), profile page (details confidential), and referral flow.

DocpaidFreelance Lead Project Designer / Product Owner

Jul. 2018 - Dec. 2018RemoteMaxHeight client - Docpaid is a dental and medical service provider/patient portal allowing patients to pay for services within a subscription model. The value prop being a way for both parties to transact services without the cumbersome insurance process. As the product owner, I conducted competitive research and produced user stories to identify MVP within the clients' vision. Duties & accomplishments: -Met with the client on product vision and inventoried competitive analysis points in order to determine competitive leverage. -Met with dev lead to relay product vision and craft implementable user stories for MVP. -Produced IA map and wireframes for client review. -With MVP concept approved, began building designs (web and mobile) and pattern library in tandem with establishing brand identity. Designs include registration flow, provider management portal for patients, patient management portal for providers, provider plan management, and settings/account center (provider/patient). -Designed product logo and app icons. -Produced illustrations with patented I-S tool. -Worked with dev lead to align pattern library to Google Material library he was using for implementation. -Produced marketing homepage designs using I-S.

SPINSFreelance Creative Director

Feb. 2017 - Apr. 2018RemoteMaxHeight client - At Spins, I helped improve their main product GroceryPress. GroceryPress was a coupon publishing platform for retailers as a web app and a coupon redeeming app for consumers as a mobile app. The apps themselves were both in need of a UX and visual overhaul. Collaborating with the Product Manager, we came up with a strategy to create one holistic app called Thrift. Duties & accomplishments: -Made UX improvements to registration flow of existing GroceryPress mobile app. -Made UX improvements to coupon publishing flow in existing retailer portal. -Collaborated with Product Manager on holistic app strategy, determining value props for both retailers and consumers. Produced company pitch deck with aggregated research and design proposals. -Established the brand identity for the new app called Thrift. Produced logo ideations, color palette, typography, illustrations, and iconography. -Produced IA maps to reorganize GroceryPress from proprietary retailer apps into one holistic Thrift app. -Designed the UX/UI of the Thrift app, and built the pattern library. Designs include onboarding and registration flow, retailer discovery home screen, coupon feed, rewards feed, checkout screen and flow, and settings/account center. -Directed a designer in producing new designs for a new retailer portal accounting for the Thrift brand and UX overhaul.

Sunrun SolarFreelance Creative Director

Apr. 2017 - Jun. 2017RemoteMaxHeight client - Sunrun needed a concept for its BrightBox mobile app. The app would monitor and display energy consumption for Sunrun solar, Sunrun BrightBox battery, and conventional energy grid, and the financial savings/flow associated. Duties & accomplishments: -Met with the product manager to determine product features. -Conducted UX research and competitive analysis referencing the Tesla battery app. -Ideated and produced mobile app designs, and 3D visuals using Cinema 4D. Established brand, color palette, typography, and iconography. -Produced flow prototypes with Invision.

Redshift Digital, Inc.Art Director

Nov. 2015 - Oct. 2016San Francisco Bay AreaRedshift is an interactive design agency in San Francisco. While there, I helped with an internal rebrand and redesigned the company homepage. Clients I worked with include Panasonic and Kaiser Permanente. Duties & accomplishments: -Worked closely with the CEO and creative director to identify the right brand voice for their new homepage. Ideated and created web/mobile designs (UI/UX) and produced 3D visuals in Cinema 4D. -Directed another designer in creating internal case study pages for the new homepage. -Augmented pattern library for the Kaiser Permanente design team for better organization and scalability. Helped improve cross-team collaboration between Redshift internal design team and Kaiser design team with new pattern library process proposal. -Designed a new web and mobile on-boarding website for Kaiser. UX/UI, iconography, and animated interaction prototypes. -Produced designs for a sustainable infrastructure desktop interface for the Panasonic Smart City Initiative (UI, UX, & infographics using 3D in Cinema 4D). -Directed another designer in creating animated prototypes of the Panasonic Smart City interface.

fuseprojectFreelance Senior Interactive Designer

Jul. 2015 - Sep. 2015San Francisco Bay AreaFuseproject is an internationally known industrial design and digital agency based in San Francisco. Known for their game console OUYA, design project with Juicero, and humanitarian One Laptop Per Child initiative (XO Laptop). While working with Fuseproject, a client of note I had the pleasure of working with was SodaStream. Duties & accomplishments: -Reorganized IA and UI system for Fluidigm C-1 and Polaris cell genomics hardware screen interfaces. -Produced UI designs based off of wireframes, and product visuals for SodaStream Mix hardware screen interface.

Aether ThingsFreelance Art Director

Nov. 2014 - May. 2015San Francisco Bay AreaAether needed a brand style guide created as well as a new homepage with improved marketing visuals and strategy for its smart Bluetooth speaker, Aether Cone. Duties & accomplishments: -Adjusted brand for digital (accessibility and scalability). Refined logo mark for scalable readability. Adjusted colors to pass WCAG contrast ratio requirements. -Produced brand style guide articulating the following specs, typography, color palette, logo usage, photography, and iconography. -Produced print materials including SXSW Aether Cone pop-up demo, and company business cards. -Conducted competitive research for new marketing homepage. -Ideated and produced new web and mobile homepage designs (UI/UX), illustrations, and Cinema 4D 3D renderings for marketing exploration.

EdelmanFreelance Art Director

Sep. 2014 - Nov. 2014RemoteWorking with Edelman, a digital agency in San Francisco, I helped them redesign a newsroom web app for Symantec. Duties & accomplishments: -Met with Symantec to gather requirements. -Collaborated with IA designer on UX research to produce wireframes. -Researched updated brand and came up with design proposals which integrated updated brand into UI. -Presented design proposal variations to Symantec. Produced approved designs for web and mobile, and pattern library. Designs include filterable news article feeds, article pages, malware knowledge base, and an about Symantec page.

StumbleUponFreelance Art Director

Jul. 2014 - Sep. 2014San Francisco Bay AreaStumbleUpon is a social media platform for discovering and sharing websites pertaining to selected interests. While working for them, I redesigned their mobile app. Duties and accomplishments: -Met with the product manager to gather requirements. -Conducted UX research referencing the existing app against similar apps like Pinterest, Pandora, and Spotify. Referred to the on-boarding process of these apps where users define their interests. Referred to content feeds, as well as liking and sharing UI and functionality. -Ideated UI variations of a few of the main screens integrating new branding recently created by an outside agency. Presented to Product Manager weekly over the course of the full app redesign. -Directed the other designers in implementing the new styles across the rest of the product (web app, marketing, and emails). -Worked closely with a mobile developer to understand their framework and what was possible in the current timeline. -In the app, Increased the visibility of sharing and following UI, and gave a balanced hierarchy to pertinent social metadata over other information on the main screen and across content feeds. -Articulated the screen designs into organized symbols in Sketch in order to deliver a reusable UI pattern library. -Illustrated a custom icon library, and imported everything into Zeplin to provide the dev team with specs and assets. -Increased the one and a half star review on the App Store to five in a matter of weeks. -After my redesign, the app the 2015 People's Voice Webby Award.

BandPageArt Director

Nov. 2011 - Oct. 2013San Francisco Bay AreaThe Bandpage platform allows musicians to aggregate all of their content to one place. Specifically, musicians can aggregate content from their Soundcloud (songs), YouTube (videos), Bands-in-town (tour dates), and Facebook page (photos). At Bandpage, I had the opportunity to rebrand the company, design the bulk of the platform, and the marketing homepage. Duties and accomplishments: -Conducted research around the current homepage designs. Collected data from surveys and interviewed a couple of musicians on the platform, including Jack Conte of Pamplemoose and John McCrea of Cake. Determined that the existing site was intimidating and felt less like a music platform and more of an enterprise product. -Researched the marketing homepages of Spotify and Ableton in order to get a sense of the tone they were using and get some ideas for the Bandpage homepage. -Worked on a few homepage variations experimenting with illustrations and animations. Large engaging photographs of musicians, high contrast, clean minimal typography, loud accent colors, and abstract elements echoing aspects of the Bandpage logo were used in the new design. I wanted to push variations into the technology aspect of the platform as well as the lifestyle aspect in order to feel out the right balance. -For the platform product, I researched a number of account linking flows, as well as the uploading flows for Soundcloud, YouTube, Bands-in-town, and Facebook pages. -Produced UI/UX design of the platform CMS. Executed strategy for standardizing the UX for the content management of multiple linked products. -Produced UI/UX design of the fullscreen musician homepage. I spent a lot of time creating designs with different assets, determining the right typography, the right UI and text colors to work over any user-defined image, and the right spacing and rules to accommodate different languages. -Rebranded the company from 'Rootmusic' to 'Bandpage'. Designed the new logo and brand guide.

Modala MediaFreelance Art Director

Jul. 2010 - Nov. 2010RemoteModala was a digital consulting agency in SF that needed a brand identity and help designing a website for the musician 'Bassnectar'. Duties & accomplishments: -Ideated and produced final logo mark and lock-ups. -Produced brand materials: letterhead, business cards, etc. -Ideated and designed Modala homepage. -Ideated and designed Bassnectar homepage.

Attik, San FranciscoSenior Interactive Designer

Nov. 2008 - Apr. 2010At Attik, graphic design and digital SF/Leeds agency famous for the 'Noise' graphic design book series, I had the privilege of working with clients like Scion, Lexus, and Blaupunkt. Duties & accomplishments: -Designed and developed award-winning digital ads for Scion and Lexus. Developed with Flash in Actionscript 3. -Worked with the creative director on producing designs for internal website pages and heuristics for Architectural firm Perkins & Will. -Worked with the creative director on producing designs for internal pages and digital ads for QUE e-reader. -Produced artwork & conceptual ads for a pitch to Blaupunkt.

TyndareusFreelance Interactive Designer

Apr. 2007 - Nov. 2008RemoteTyndareus was a digital consulting agency based in SF & Denver. Duties & accomplishments: -Ideated and designed a new logo for a fin-tech company called Pivot. -Designed and created illustrations for a new homepage for a sustainable bank called Greenbank. -Designed and created illustrations for Tyndareus company website.