Me.
Hi, I'm Nick. My years of experience solving problems in ambiguous spaces with limited resources have taught me to lead and think creatively under pressure.
I believe design is best approached with optimism, curiosity, courage, and extraordinary teamwork. I thrive in team environments, collaborating across disciplines on purposeful user-centered design.
As a product designer, most recently at First Republic Bank, I led impactful UX projects for the site experience, contributed to developing the design system, and played a key role in the organization's brand guidelines. At Razorfish, I was constantly challenged in a fast-paced environment, working on a wide range of projects for global brands, including an archetype-segmented dashboard, e-commerce customer experiences, and forward-thinking concepts that generated excitement. My volunteer work for nonprofits helped forge new pathways for innovation through human-centered design.
Before transitioning to UX, I worked in-house as a creative, event producer, and talent buyer for two of San Francisco's most legendary electronic dance music venues.
When I'm not working, you can find me running trails 🏃 in vinyl record shops searching for groovy music 🎶 playing retro video games 👾 or at local restaurants 🍕 with friends and family 💙. I am currently learning to play the piano 🎹 and speak French 🇫🇷 both of which are super challenging!
Education
San Francisco State University
B.A. Studio Art
Skills
Information Architecture
Data Analysis
Journey Mapping
Heuristic Evaluation
Competitive Analysis
Usability Testing
Persona Building
Story Boarding
Strategy Development
Conceptualization
Wireframing
Prototyping
User Testing
UI Design
Design Systems
What people are saying
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."
Stuart Cannon
Executive Director, Brand
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."
Gigi Palatnik
Lead Designer
Personio
x 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."
Nick Santoro
UX | Product Designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area