THE DESIGN 75: The Best Designers In Technology

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75. Alison Lewis

75. Alison Lewis

CEO/Creative Director, Agent of Presence

Alison Lewis is a designer and fashion technologist who brings high-tech innovation and design to clothing, household objects, and small electronics. She currently runs Agent of Presence, a fashion accessory design company. Their first products are an LED illuminated dress and luxury handbag.

Lewis has been named one of Fast Company's Most Influential Women In Tech, and is the author of Switch Craft, a DIY electronic crafts book. Her entrepreneurial endeavors have been covered by the NYTimes, Associated Press, WWD, and The Martha Stewart Show.

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74. Drew Davidson

74. Drew Davidson

“Knot Detangler,” Sr. Experience Director at ÄKTA

Drew Davidson helps ensure a consistent vision through all phases of a product's development process.  

Before joining AKTA, Davidson was the lead information architect on Motorola SmartActions. The software enables you to do a wide variety of things autonomously, like silencing your phone when you walk into a movie theater, and hiding work email alerts on the weekend. 

From a nominator: "Armed with a degree in cognitive psychology Drew deserves of this distinction because of because of his deep understanding and curiosity for people and the way they interact in a digital world. Drew’s design work can be seen when users do exactly what the product intended them to do. He gives a new definition to the term designer because his work is experienced and not just viewed, making him a pioneer in the digital product design space. I’m sure you will not come across many designers who have an analytical mind and the ability to draw out consumer insights to input into his design work."

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73. Alberto Moro

73. Alberto Moro

Interaction Designer, IDEO

Currently an Interaction Designer at the design and consulting firm IDEO, Alberto works at the intersection of design, computer science, art, and anthropology.

His design approach, which emphasizes human impact, is illustrated by his 2010 project Hello. The project was honored at the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. 

72. Zack Anton Morad

72. Zack Anton Morad

Co-founder and CEO, Eurisko

As the CEO of Eurisko Mobility, Zack Anton Morad can list Coldwell Banker, American Express, and Hallmark as clients. He is a serial entrepreneur dedicated to building solid apps that increase user engagement.

A Lebanon-based company, Eurisko is leading the mobile app scene at the cutting edge in the Middle East.

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71. Albert Yih

71. Albert Yih

Motion and Visual Designer, Wieden + Kennedy

Albert Yih graduated from the Carnegie Mellon design program in 2011 where he was initially told by a professor that he was in the wrong major.

Over the past two years at advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy, Yih has had the opportunity to work on projects for clients like Facebook, Oreo, Old Spice, Chrysler, and Coke. He most recently worked on the UI animations for the Facebook Home advertisements and the Oreo Separator opening sequences.

You can check out more Yih's work on his site here.

70. Michael Wong

70. Michael Wong

UI/UX Design Ninja, Front-end Developer & Entrepreneur

Michael is currently a full-time freelance UI/UX designer. He's worked with brands including Adobe, Mitsubishi, KORA by Miranda Kerr and a number of startups with up to millions of users such as; Freelancer ®, TVShow Time and others.

Since the age of 15, he has been developing website designs for online marketers. He is an expert in online traffic sources, paid ad management, front-end and UI design, and SEO.

Michael's work has been praised for "focusing on good design, not just good decoration."

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69. Allan Yu

69. Allan Yu

Digital Product Designer, Svpply

Allan Yu is the former lead designer at Svpply, a platform for curated collections of products and stores. While at Svpply, Yu was responsible for designing the company's web, iPhone, and iPad presences. He specifically focused on visual design, user interfaces and user experiences.

Yu has led the design for numerous other startups, including daily catalog app Want. You can check out his other work here.

68. Dan Formosa

68. Dan Formosa

Founder, Smart Design

Dan Formosa is the award-winning designer behind IBM's first home computer. In 1980, he co-founded the firm Smart Design.

He and his firm have designed products like the Flip camcorders, photo printers, and have worked with companies including Cisco, HP, Corning, LG, Microsoft, Samsung, Yahoo, and Toshiba. 

Formosa also worked on Ford's SmartGauge LCD panel found in its Fusion Hybrid model. 

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67. Conrad Alfaro

67. Conrad Alfaro

User Interface Graphic Designer, ByteLaunch

Conrad Alfaro is highly talented graphic, web, and mobile designer with hundreds of
projects under his belt that has been with the ByteLaunch team for nearly a year.

From a nominator: "While he's been with us, he has shown incredible flexibility in being able to design for a wide variety of clients, including Nissan, Novecento, BudoVideos.com, and many more.

Conrad has a unique creative and design approach for developing the “right” graphic or
imagery for the project at hand. Similarly to a doctor, he takes the time to understand a client's corporate personality, mission, and goals to make his prognosis as to what the client needs. Once he truly understands the overall purpose of the project at hand he begins the design process.

From an outside perspective, it appears as though he can see the final design burning
through the white canvas on his computer screen. His diligent efforts to truly understand each and every project gives him a creative insight and forethought I've rarely seen in other designers."

66. Ian Collins

66. Ian Collins

Creative Director, Simple

Ian Collins is the guy behind banking startup Simple's online branding and identity. Collins is also responsible for the design behind Simple's Goals feature, its mobile app, packaging, and much more. You can see more of his work here

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65. Ian Silber

65. Ian Silber

Product Designer, Groupon

Before joining Groupon, Silber built FollowUpThen, an email-forwarding reminder system. He also designed and managed the CMS system TypeRoom, and designed and built the bridal website Engaged & Inspired.

His most recent project is Intab, a quick-look tool for opening tabs inline on web browsers.

64. Theodore Ulrich

64. Theodore Ulrich

Founder, Tomorrow Lab

Ted is the founder of Tomorrow Lab in 2010, a hardware research, design and engineering consultancy based in New York City.

In three years, Tomorrow Lab has developed some of the premier connected hardware devices including Social Bicycles, Adhere Tech, and BrightBox. They are now developing TrafficCOM, the first inexpensive traffic counter to aggregate open data of bicycle and automobile counts. Ted has done speaking events at the Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design and STRELKA Institute in Moscow.

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63. Lucian Slatineanu

63. Lucian Slatineanu

Chief Creative Engineer, Emblematiq

Lucian Slatineanu is an independent design engineer based in Chicago. As the chief of his own design studio, Emblamatiq, Lucian's clients include Apple, Groupon, Motorola, and Chevron, to name a few. He has been designing interactive experiences since 1999.

From a nominator: "I easily consider him the best web/UX designer I have worked with."

62. Steven Walker

62. Steven Walker

Head of Platform Experience, Quirky

Steven Walker was the first designer at Groupon where he helped scale the design team to over 30 product designers, communication designers, brand designers, and design researchers. 

Now, Walker works at Quirky where he leads the platform team.

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61. Patrick Evans

61. Patrick Evans

Associate Creative Director, User Experience Lead, AGOGO Amalgamated, Inc.

Patrick Evans began his career as an engineer and designer, alternately wearing whichever hats were needed on different projects. He cut his enterprise teeth designing interface and experience components for digital publishing products for Stanford.

HotelTonight was his first direct consumer product experience. After redesigning the majority of the HotelTonight web assets he stepped in as the primary interface designer for the imminent native iPhone app project. The iPad, Android and Android tablet apps followed, with each being an opportunity to rethink the design and experience targeted for new form factors and different platforms. 

In addition to consulting on smaller projects, typically from ambitious friends with pretty amazing ideas, he's joined a business with a few of the most talented engineers he says he's ever met with the aim of creating some totally wonderful projects that will touch some screens he's always wanted to design for.

From a nominator: "Patrick Evans was, until recently, the designer at HotelTonight. Like Loren (Brichter), although to a different degree, he's an engineer by training and he is responsible for defining design patterns that other apps tend to imitate (notice how many travel apps take cues from HT, as well as others like WillCall). Patrick has since gone off and joined a stealth-mode startup."

60. Robert Lenne

60. Robert Lenne

Head of Design, Artsy

Robert Lenne has vast experience in product design, having previously worked at design firm IDEO as a principal designer. While at IDEO, Lenne was responsible for developing new digital products and experiences for small startups and big companies alike. Now, he leads the design team at art discovery platform Artsy.

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59. Josh Puckett

59. Josh Puckett

Product Designer, Dropbox

Josh Puckett recently joined Dropbox as a product designer, working on the company's mobile apps and Photos product.

Previously, Puckett was at Groupon for two and half years, where he led a design team working on small business products that made merchant's lives easier when it comes to things like selling their goods and services, getting people in the door, and serving their existing customers.

He also led Groupon's mobile design prior to that role. Before Groupon, he was a freelancer designer, working for various early stage startups from around the world. 

58. Patrick Moberg

58. Patrick Moberg

Hacker in Residence, Betaworks

Patrick Moberg is the genius behind Dots, the Bejeweled meets Letterpress mobile game about connecting dots. Dots is simple, yet beautiful. 

Before joining Betaworks, Moberg worked at Vimeo and co-founded social app Banters. Before Dots, Moberg had never coded nor designed a game before. 

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57. Vivian Wang

57. Vivian Wang

Product Designer, Facebook

Vivian Wang recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon University School of Design. Before joining Facebook, Wang interned at frog design in New York and ArtScene Gallery in Shanghai. 

Wang played a large part in Facebook's latest redesign, which featured a shift in typeface to Helvetica, and places less prominence on the Ticker.

56. Lukas Scherrer

56. Lukas Scherrer

Design Director, Nordic Technology Group; Founder/Design Director, mimijumi; Founder, SHIBULERU

A former senior designer at IDEO, Lukas Scherrer launched SHIBULERU, an industrial production design shop, and mimijumi, a baby product design company.

Scherrer is on the nominating committee of the Swiss Design Awards. He has designed everything from complex medical devices to baby bottles, and his expertise ranges from graphics to architecture.

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55. Jordan Fulghum

55. Jordan Fulghum

Product and User Interface Designer

Jordan Fulghum was the second design hire at Groupon and worked on the consumer application for three years. He also created Vidless, an app that makes it easy to video chat with people all over the world. He's also behind All Aboard, a simple yet beautiful bus tracker iPhone app. 

He's currently working with many local startups in Chicago, helping them with everything from product strategy to interface design to front-end development. 

54. Mike Gowen

54. Mike Gowen

Product Designer, Mosaic

Mike Gowen works as a product designer at Mosaic, an iPhone app that lets you create photo books.The app has a superior user interface, and that's mostly thanks to Gowen.

Gowen has also worked at Yobongo, Scrapblog, Tick, and Alienware. He's also the creator of Pictuo, the beautiful website for finding things to inspire you.

Gowen started his design career building BBS systems before the Internet was widely available. His first professional position was Creative Director of Alienware. From there he led design efforts for such companies as Tick, Scrapblog, and Yobongo. Most recently he was the sole designer on the team that created Mosaic, an app to create breathtaking photobooks from your iPhone.

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53. Michael Griffith

53. Michael Griffith

Creative Director, Bottle Rocket

As the Creative Director at Bottle Rocket, Michael Griffith designs marketing-based brand experiences for mobile devices. With over two decades of digital media experience, his expertise ranges from development of iPad apps (he designed NPR for the iPad) to implementing social media marketing.

Under Griffith's lead, Bottle Rocket was nominated for a Webby for its Food Network in the Kitchen app, and won a Webby for its NPR iPad app (which is in the iTunes App Store Hall of Fame).

52. Lee Cerre

52. Lee Cerre

Graphic Designer, Everlane

Lee Cerre is a former stylist with an eye for simple, punchy design. Her personal work exhibits print and web mastery in both editorial and artistic capacities. But Lee's nominator made it clear that her graphic design work with Everlane bears the weight of the nomination.

Everlane is a design-oriented clothing retailer that delivers high-quality fashion at low prices. Lee's domain is their website, and it is clear that as much design consideration goes into Everlane's online presence as their products.

Lee has design degrees from NYU and the Parsons School for Design.

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51. Sung Kim

51. Sung Kim

VP of Design and UX, Prulu

Sung is currently the VP of Design and UX at Prulu, a Q&A site for higher education.

Previously, Sung has done design work for a number of Fortune 500 companies. Among his many successes, Sung developed the Sam's Club Android app, Bud Light's mobile site, and the 7-Eleven site. The range of his projects illustrate his flexibility and dedication to the user experience.

Sung has been lauded by Bono, who said his presentation of the design for the (Red) website was the best presentation he's ever seen.

50. Isabelle Olsson

50. Isabelle Olsson

Senior Industrial Designer, Google

Isabelle Olsson is the design genius behind Google Glass. Before joining Google, she worked at Yves Behar's design agency, Fuseproject.

"My inspiration is to make (Google Glass) as minimal as possible without being boring," Olsson told Business Insider last June. "I'm not interested in adding textures or patterns. Instead of trying to make it conventional, looking like glasses, literal, it's essential."

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49. David Lee

49. David Lee

Chief Creative Officer, Squarespace

David Lee joined Squarespace earlier this year from TBWA Worldwide, where he served as the advertising agency's creative director. In addition to overseeing the agency's creative efforts throughout the world, Lee worked as the president and chief creative officer of Pilot.is, a design and technology group.

Lee also helped design Projeqt, a web presentation platform for portfolios. 

From a nominator: "David Lee is a rare breed in the world of design for lots of reasons. He's a RISD-trained, digital-first designer who found his way into advertising. He successfully built and sold products inside an agency (TBWA). And now he's made the success transition from the world of servicing clients to building products. Beyond that, though, David is hugely skilled at a combination of disciplines that you hardly ever see: He can spot a business opportunity, imagine and wireframe a solution, and then give it the visual polish you'd expect in the very best products in the world. When I think of David's skills mostly I think that I don't know anyone else who has them." 

48. Aubrey Johnson

48. Aubrey Johnson

Designer in Residence, Science, Inc.

Aubrey is currently the lead designer at Science in LA helping several innovative companies break into the LA startup ecosystem. Aubrey previously led design at Memolane and Color, and I am very excited to see what he will do next.

Before joining Science, Johnson worked as design lead at Color, director of interaction design at Memolane, and as a senior user interface designer at VersionOne. He also led the UI/UX team at Twilio

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47. Jason Putorti

47. Jason Putorti

Creative Director, Causes

Jason Putorti is the former head designer of personal finance management site Mint.com. Mint was one of the first web apps with a more physical, three dimensional design style. 

After leaving Mint in December 2009, Putorti joined Bessemer Venture Partners as a designer-in-residence where he helped its portfolio companies with design and branding.

Putorti later founded and designed Votizen, a social lobbying product for registered voters, which Causes.com later acquired. His new title is creative director.

Check out some of his work over on Dribbble. 

46. Daniel Burka

46. Daniel Burka

Design Partner, Google Ventures 

Burka is arguably best known for his work at Digg where he served as a creative director for several years.

Daniel Burka co-founded mobile incubator Milk alongside Digg founder Kevin Rose in 2011. When Google acquired Milk last year, Burka joined Google to lead up the company's mobile user experience for Google+. Now Burka works for Google's venture arm as a design partner where he helps portfolio companies with product design and user research.

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45. Ryan Freitas

45. Ryan Freitas

Co-Founder, About.me

Ryan Freitas is a full-time user interface designer and entrepreneur at personal profile site About.me. Freitas is responsible for the user experience behind About.me and continues to run the product following AOL's acquisition of the startup.

44. Joey Roth

44. Joey Roth

Founder/Principal, Joey Roth 

Joey Roth's Ceramic Speaker System has been lauded as one of the best designed speakers. He's designtrepreneur who's company is dedicated to designing well-made, quality products. 

He's designed a modern teapot called the Sorapot, a mouse made out of fabric, wood, and metal, a modern day compass, and much more. 

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43. Justin Edmund

43. Justin Edmund

Product Designer, Pinterest

Social bookmarking site Pinterest has sparked a major revolution in web design, with many sites blatantly copying Pinterest's style because it simply works in attracting users. 

Justin Edmund got his start in 2010 when he interned on Facebook's design team during college. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, Edmund landed a job at Pinterest where he has played a crucial role in the building the site's look and feel. 

42. Marcos Weskamp

42. Marcos Weskamp

Head of Design, Flipboard

Marcos Weskamp is the creative genius behind one of the most beautiful reading apps out there today.

Weskamp joined Flipboard in 2010, before the company even had a name. Weskamp has worked as a graphic designer and interface developer for companies like Adobe, Razorfish Japan and Dentsu. In 2004, he co-founded interaction design studio B2. 

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41. Dom Goodrum

41. Dom Goodrum

Design Director, Percolate 

Dom Goodrum is the design director at Percolate, a NYC-based technology company that helps brands create content at social scale.

His thoughtful approach to design guides the evolution of Percolate's software product, one that is New York’s gift to CMOs.

Goodrum previously created 3-UP, a mobile app that aimed to make networking more inspirational. He also led the design of CNN’s Open Stories product for citizen journalists everywhere while at The Barbarian Group.

40. Andrew Cornett

40. Andrew Cornett

Designer Founder, Jukely

Andrew Cornett landed his first full-time job right out of high school at Oracle where he worked on interface design.

In 2010, Cornett switched coasts and moved to New York where he helped design crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Cornett is also responsible for the design of Kickstarter's first official iPhone app

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39. Andrew Schapiro

39. Andrew Schapiro

Graphic Design Lead, Airbnb

Andrew Schapiro leads the graphic design team at Airbnb, where he focuses on creating advertising campaigns, environmental designs, and other branded solutions. 

Under Schapiro's lead, the team has grown 3x and has tackled many company firsts: including its first Annual report, for 2012, which Andrew designed in both print and digital formats. Schapiro was also the creative lead for the launch of Airbnb's Neighborhoods product.

38. Jeffrey Kalmikoff

38. Jeffrey Kalmikoff

Chief Experience Officer, Betable

Jeffrey Kalmikoff spent over six years as the chief creative officer at Threadless.com. After Threadless, Kalmikoff went over to Digg where he worked as its director of design and user experience from 2009 to 2010. His next stop: SimpleGeo where served as VP of Product and worked as the company's sole designer.

Now, Kalmikoff leads up design at startup Betable as chief experience officer. He's also an advisor to several startups including Urban Airship, POPTIP, Circa, and Geekli.st. 

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37. Mia Blume

37. Mia Blume

Product Design Manager, Pinterest

Mia Blume has a background in graphic and interaction design. Currently, she manages the product design team at Pinterest.

Before Pinterest, she led the Register design team at Square, building a team and product from the ground up. Prior to Square, she worked at IDEO designing and leading key initiatives with mobile and tech companies for several years.

36. Julius Tarng

36. Julius Tarng

Designer, Branch

Julius Tarng practices holistic and cohesive design based on his experience in interaction, product, information architecture, and experience design.

Tarng previously interned at Nokia and Kodak while studying at Carnegie Mellon University. He recently ended a one-year stint at Smart Design. 

He's currently a designer at conversation platform Branch where, alongside founder Cemre Güngör, is responsible for every aspect of design and the front-end development. Check out some of his work here

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35. Karen Kaushansky

35. Karen Kaushansky

Device Interaction Designer, Jawbone

Karen Kaushansky is the brain behind those neat Jawbone devices that speak to you. Kaushansky is responsible for creating the rich, interactive experiences that we've all grown accustomed to with Jawbone products. 

Jawbone's line of products include Bluetooth headsets, wireless speakers, and fitness tracker devices. 

34. David Yen

34. David Yen

Product Designer, Lore

Before joining education startup Lore, David Yen worked at Google and at the Carnegie Mellon School of Design. 

Yen is also the designer behind Tackup, a web app for capturing and sharing the design process. In addition to web design, Yen also has experience designing products like the Nobi Radio and the Ruben Box, an outdoor speaker-furniture hybrid.

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33. Shaun Modi

33. Shaun Modi

Interaction Designer, Airbnb

Shaun Modi is at the forefront of technology and design. With a degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design, Modi has led the design for products at Airbnb, Google, NASA, Motorola, Nokia, and his own startup, DailyModi. 

At Airbnb, Modi led the web and mobile design for Wish Lists to give users a deeply visual way of browsing Airbnb listings and creating their own customized lists. Modi also worked on Airbnb's revamped iPhone app that launched last June to much fanfare.

Before joining Airbnb, Modi worked at Google where he led the design of Google+ Circles, and contributed to the look and feel of Maps and Chrome. 

32. Geoff Koops

32. Geoff Koops

Designer, Rdio

Before joining music company Rdio this year, Geoff Koops helped design products at Square, Apple, and Electronic Arts.

While at Square, Koops led the mobile payment startup's web design team. At Apple, Koops worked as the company's senior art director contributions to Apple include designing as an online art director at Apple. Before that, he worked as a web designer at Apple, a senior art director at Publicis Modern, an art director at Modern Media, and an online designer at Electronic Arts.

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31. Joey Flynn

31. Joey Flynn

Product Designer, Facebook

Joey Flynn was responsible for large parts of Facebook Home, the social network's first big foray into mobile phones. He's also the guy responsible for Facebook Timeline for mobile, and the mobile app's live-view camera for shooting cover photos.

30. Cemre Güngör

30. Cemre Güngör

Design Co-Founder, Branch

Cemre Güngör is responsible for the look and feel of conversation platform Branch. Prior to founding Branch, Güngör worked at Etsy as a product designer. 

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29. Evan Sharp

29. Evan Sharp

Co-founder, Pinterest

Evan Sharp used to be an architect, and then designed the first versions of Pinterest. Today, Sharp leads Pinterest's creative team.

Before Pinterest, Sharp worked at Facebook as a product designer. 

28. Theresa Neil

28. Theresa Neil

User Interface Designer, Theresa Neil Strategy + Design

Theresa Neil got her start 12 years ago leading the UX design for dozens of companies and startups including Adobe, eBay, AT&T, Cloudera, and Silvercar. With eBay and PayPal, Neil specifically worked on mobile express checkout.

She's also the author of two top-selling books, "Developing Web Interfaces" and "Mobile Design Pattern Gallery."

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27. Johnnie Manzari

27. Johnnie Manzari

User Interface Designer, Apple

Johnnie Manzari came to Silicon Valley in 1997, just in time to witness the dot-com boom and bust. Prior to joining Apple, Manzari worked at Adobe where he helped design the user interface for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. He also spent four years at Slide, a social apps company that Google later acquired, where he was the first designer. 

Since 2009, Manzari has worked at Apple where he designs user interfaces for photography applications. 

26. Nicolas Denhez

26. Nicolas Denhez

Senior Principal Industrial Design, Xbox at Microsoft

Nicolas Denhez has worked at a number of tech companies including Microsoft, Dell, and Samsung.

While at Dell, Denhez was the lead designer of its elegant Adamo laptop, though Dell has since discontinued the laptop.

Prior to Dell, Denhez worked as a senior industrial designer at Samsung's wireless design lab in Los Angeles.  

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25. Matt Hunter

25. Matt Hunter

Senior Software Product Designer, Jawbone

Matt Hunter designed the latest version of the Jawbone Up app that accompanies the fitness band. Prior to joining Jawbone, Hunter founded Textslide and EightBit.me.

24. Willem Van Lancker

24. Willem Van Lancker

Co-founder, Oyster

Willem Van Lancker used to design maps at Google, interfaces at Apple, and worked on graphic design at innovation and design firm IDEO. 

While at Google, Van Lancker worked as a user experiences and visual designer where he led product design for Google Maps, Local Search, Google Earth, and Street View on desktop, iOS, and Android. 

At Apple, Van Lancker worked on the design of the App Store, the Quicktime mini-player, and created hundreds of emoji characters featured on Apple's iPhone keyboard.

Now, Van Lancker is working on his own startup called Oyster, an iPhone app where you can read as many books as you'd like for one monthly free.

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23. Andrei Herasimchuk

23. Andrei Herasimchuk

Designer

Andrei Herasimchuk has several years worth of experience designing user interfaces at tech companies. He's considered one of the first user interface designers at Adobe, where he led the design for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign from 1995 to 1999.

Herasimchuk recently left his brief stint at Twitter, where he served as director of design. He's also the former senior director of product design at Yahoo, where he led the redesign for Yahoo Mail. 

22. Sabrina Majeed

22. Sabrina Majeed

Lead Designer, Venmo

Sabrina Majeed studied design and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon. Now, she's putting her education to work over at payments startup Venmo as its lead designer. 

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21. Sophie Xie

21. Sophie Xie

Product Designer, Facebook

Before joining Facebook, Sophie Xie worked at Microsoft and forum platform vBulletin. While at Microsoft, Xie helped develop the prototype for Windows Mobile and led a complete redesign of the user interface at vBulletin.

From a nominator: "Sophie is definitely an influential member of the design team at Facebook, and the world sees her impact first-hand through improvements of Facebook's design."

20. Jim Wicks

20. Jim Wicks

SVP of Consumer Experience Design, Motorola

Jim Wicks is the guy in charge of Motorola's mobile devices. He led the development of the Motorola RAZR, one of the most popular and iconic cell phones of all time. Wicks is also the designer behind Motorola's family of DROID smartphones.

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19. Ken'ichiro Ashida

19. Ken'ichiro Ashida

Hardware Designer, Nintendo

Ken'ichiro Ashida led the design of the Nintendo DS and Wii, two of the top-selling game consoles of all time.

Ashida also invented the Wii wheel and Wii zapper, two very popular Wii accessories. 

18. J Allard

18. J Allard

Co-Founder, Project 529

J Allard is the former chief experience officer at Microsoft where he was responsible for making the company's products look beautiful.

While at Microsoft, Allard was the visionary behind the Xbox 360, Xbox Live interface, and the conceptual foundation of Windows 8.

Now, he's working on Project 529, a stealth startup that seems to have something to do with releasing people from the standard 9-to-5 work schedule.  

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17. David Lanham

17. David Lanham

Webmaster/Designer, Iconfactory

David Lanham is the genius who designed most of the UI for Twitterrific, the award-winning Twitter client for the iPhone. He is also behind Ollie, the blue Twitterrific mascot, and the icon for calendar app Fantastical.

He is a freelance icon artist, and an accomplished illustrator and graphic designer, having won Pixelpalooza in the OSX category.

David says that some of his influences are Disney, Pixar, and Miyazaki films. Check out his artwork — it definitely shows.

16. Kate Aronowitz

16. Kate Aronowitz

Director of Design, Facebook

Kate is a design team lead veteran. Prior to joining Facebook, Aronowitz worked at LinkedIn as its head of design.

When she first arrived in Silicon Valley, she took a print design job at eBay and soon turned that into digital work. Before she left in 2007, Aronowitz held senior manager of user experience design position. 

Today, Aronowitz leads up design at Facebook. 

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15. Veerle Pieters

15. Veerle Pieters

Executive Director and Design Lead, Fab

Working along closely with design startup Fab co-founder and CEO Jason Goldberg, Veerle Pieters helps turn Goldberg's vision into a reality.

Pieters started her career working in print, where she designed logos, stationery, and brochures. A couple of years later, Pieters started designing websites and user interfaces for the Internet.

Now at Fab, Pieters does all the graphic design work for its website, logo, and mobile apps. 

14. Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers

14. Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers

Designers, Google

Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers's design expertise can be seen in Microsoft's Xbox 360, Belkin's comfort mouse, and Google's G1 phone, the first smartphone to run Android. 

"Working with Google, we envisioned a device that would run the open-source Android operating system, extending the functionality, intelligence, and ease of the Android experience into a phone.

Now, the husband and wife duo are at Google where they first joined to design the Nexus Q, a beautiful media-streaming device that ended up being a flop

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13. James Dyson

13. James Dyson

Industrial Designer

James Dyson is a legendary inventor and industrial designer, best known for his bag-less vacuum cleaner. 

Dyson is also the creator behind the no-blade Air Multiplier fan and the AirBlade hand dryer. 

12. Matias Duarte

12. Matias Duarte

Director of Android User Experience, Google

When Matias Duarte joined Google in May 2010, his first task was to develop Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) and design a more intuitive interface for tablet. Since then, Duarte has led the design for Android's more recent operating systems. 

Duarte previously led user interface projects at Danger, Helio, and Palm. While at Palm, Matias created and designed mobile operating system webOS, which LG bought earlier this year.  

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11. Mike Matas

11. Mike Matas

User Interface Designer, Facebook

User Interface Advisor, Nest Labs

Mike Matas is a former Apple iPhone and iPad designer. Apple hired Matas at the ripe age of 19. 

While at Apple Matas helped build the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad software. He's also credited as the guy who created the battery logo on the iPhone screen when it's charging.

Prior to joining Facebook, Matas co-founded digital publishing software maker Push Pop Press, which Facebook later acquired. He also helped design the Nest Learning Thermostat. 

Now, Matas works at Facebook on the company's new mobile offering Home. 

10. Joe Belfiore

10. Joe Belfiore

Corporate VP and Manager for Windows Phone, Microsoft

Joe Belfiore is the person behind Microsoft's mobile operating system. Belfiore leads the team responsible for the look and feel of Windows phone software, which is one of the most beautiful mobile operating systems out there today.

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9. Danny Trinh*

9. Danny Trinh*

Product Designer, Path

Danny Trinh is a product designer at mobile-only social network Path. The app, which just surpassed 10 million users, is often touted as one of the best designed mobile apps out there today. When Facebook launched Home last month, many tech pundits said it looked very similar to Path because of its circular icons. In June 2012, Facebook's head of mobile business Henri Moissanic even said that the world's largest social network is trying to copy startup Path. 

Before joining Path in October 2010, Trinh worked as a designer at Digg for about two and a half years. 

Note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said Trinh was a lead designer at Path. 

8. Philippe Starck

8. Philippe Starck

Designer

Philippe Starck is probably best known for designing portable hard drives for LaCie. He's also the guy behind the gorgeous Parrot Zik headphones.

In addition to designing consumer gadgets, Starck dabbles in everything from furniture to watches to home lighting. He's currently working at Yoo, a residential interior design firm.

Before Apple CEO Steve Jobs passed away, Starck was helping him design a super yacht.

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7. Mari Sheibley

7. Mari Sheibley

Graphic Designer

Mari Sheibley was an early Foursquare employee and the company's first designer. While at Foursquare, Sheibley created the look and feel of the social check-in and local discovery app. She's responsible for Foursquare's most iconic elements like its logos and badges you receive when you check in. 

"It’s a bittersweet feeling to leave behind something that was so tightly woven into my life for so long, but at the same time, I’ve never been this excited for the future," she told TechCrunch upon deciding to move on from Foursquare. "I’m ready to tackle new problems and help other entrepreneurs bring their vision to life, just as I did with Dens and Naveen all those years ago."

Sheibley has also designed logos for For The Makers, a startup to help creative people build products themselves, and personalized address book app Brewster. 

6. Jason Wilson

6. Jason Wilson

Lead Product Designer, Pinterest

Jason Wilson is a self-described design vagabond and has worked at, and with, some of the biggest names in tech, including Apple, Facebook, Adobe, RIM. He is now lead product designer at Pinterest. His most recent project was leading the recent re-design of Pinterest. He holds four patents and is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

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5. Tony Fadell

5. Tony Fadell

Founder and CEO, Nest 

Tony Fadell is often referred to as the "Father of the iPod" because he created the first prototype for the iPod and worked as the senior vice president of the iPod division from 2006 to 2008. 

While at Apple, Fadell oversaw the development of several generations of the iPod and led the hardware design and development for the first three generations of the iPhone. 

Now at Nest, Fadell is working on remaking the traditional thermostat. 

4. Yves Behar

4. Yves Behar

Founder, Fuseproject

Yves Behar is the founder of the renowned industrial design firm Fuseproject. Behar's claim to fame includes working on Kickstarter success Ouya, an Android-based video game system, the first $100 "XO" laptop for the One Laptop Per Child program, and designed Jawbone headsets.

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3. Jean-Marc Denis

3. Jean-Marc Denis

Product Designer, Google

Jean-Marc Denis is a user experience designer and iOS expert currently working for Google.

Jean-Marc taught himself Photoshop through video tutorials, books, and trail-and-error, opening his first website design company at age 18.

Previously, he was the Graphic Designer for Sparrow, the France-based minimalistic email app for Mac users acquired by Google last year.

Check out more of his work on Dribbble.

2. Loren Brichter

2. Loren Brichter

Developer and Designer, Letterpress

Brichter developed Tweetie, a Twitter client that later became the social network's official iOS app following an acquisition of his company. He's also the developer behind the word game Letterpress, which has been downloaded millions of times.

Brichter, just 28 years old, invented the iOS trick where you pull down from the top of the screen to refresh the page of an app. He's also responsible for the panels that slide out from the side of an app, as well as the "cell swipe." Those features are now staples in iOS apps.

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1. Jonathan Ive

1. Jonathan Ive

SVP of Industrial Design, Apple

When Apple launches iOS 7, it will be the first version of its mobile operating system designed under Ive. Ive is reportedly pushing more of a "'flat design' that is starker and simpler."  

Last fall, Apple gave Ive more control over the look and feel of iOS. He previously only led the design of Apple's hardware products including the iPhone, iMac, and MacBook. 

"When I look around the executive team table, I see superstars," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference earlier this year. "I see people who are at the very top of their game. I see people like Jony Ive, who's the best designer in the world. He's now bringing his talents to our software as well."

Feeling inspired to become a designer?

Feeling inspired to become a designer?

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