I believe design is best approached with optimism, purpose, extraordinary teamwork, and the courage to make a change.

My process begins with deepening my understanding of people and purpose, seeking bias and weaknesses, digging into the grit of the details, and uncovering opportunities.

I bring to product design a background in the arts and over 8 years of experience designing and producing immersive live music events.

Education

San Francisco State University
B.A. Studio Art

Skills

UX Design
UI Design
Experience Design
Concept

Strategy
Wireframing & Prototyping

Tools

Figma
Sketch
ProtoPie
Illustrator
PhotoShop
After Effects

Base Knowledge
HTML
CSS
JavaScript

Recognition

Awwwards.

Honors

Origins Brand Guide

2023

CSS Design Awards

Best UX Design, Best UI Design 
and Best Innovation

Origins Brand Guide

2023

CSS Winner

Star Award

Origins Brand Guide

2023

First Republic

Eagle Excellence Award

For outstanding achievements rarely demonstrated by others

2023

What people say

Pamela Schott
Senior Creative Director, Film and Television Writer
Source Material Productions
x First Republic

Nick is the kind of person I aspire to be — patient, kind, genuinely open to input and collaboration. More than that, there is no duplicity in Nick: What you see is what you get, and what you get is a true friend, an incomparable product designer, and a beautiful soul.

Every interaction with Nick left me more knowledgeable, more confident in the work at hand, and more excited about the resulting product — which always, without fail, exceeded my expectations.

Whenever I get discouraged thinking about how our best efforts to create something that is soulful, elegant and refined can be sidelined by an insatiable drive for profit, I remember that there are people like Nick who show up and swing for the fences anyway.

Nick not only has my endorsement, he has my undying respect and admiration. I am already jealous. of the next team who will have the privilege of working with him.

Gigi Palatnik
Creative Director
Ogilvy
x First Republic
x Nokia

It was a pleasure to work with Nick at First Republic Bank. A highly talented and experienced UX designer, Nick was responsible for overseeing the entire UX process from the beginning to the end of the website implementation of the brand guidelines. The process was handled by him with ease, and he worked closely with the team and the developers on every aspect of the delivery at every step along the way.

Nick is one of the hardest working individuals I know with incredible expertise, and he always delivers exceptional results. Also, he is extremely creative and imaginative when it comes to approaching projects and always goes out of his way to help the team when the need arises. His user-centric approach ensures that the user experience is seamless and built according to the needs of the users. In order to achieve this result, he would go through multiple rounds of design until he found the right solution. Besides being highly skilled, Nick is also very collaborative, very team-oriented, and a pleasure to work with. I look forward to working with Nick again in the near future.

Stuart Cannon
Senior Creative Director
JPMorgan
x First Republic
x Tank Design

Nick was an integral part of our in-house creative team at First Republic, and a delight to work with. He made numerous invaluable contributions to the bank, the highlight of which was our award-winning brand guidelines site where he was responsible for the architecture, and overall experience design. Nick's work was consistently backed with solid research, user flows and where necessary, Figma prototypes which provided additional clarity and perspective when presenting to stakeholder groups.

A perpetual self-learner and excellent collaborator, Nick immersed himself in any given project, brought clarity to the complex and always designed with a fantastic level of thought and feeling.

Nick Santoro

UX | Product Designer

Based in San Francisco Bay Area

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