Work
Some of my select work and references are below, I'm currently available to hire for full-time and contract roles.
References
What past coworkers have said about working with me. You can read all of my recommendations on LinkedIn.
"Dennis and I worked together at Northstar for almost 3 years. In that time I had the pleasure of witnessing Dennis share his unique Design leadership, philosophy, and skillsets in countless ways. He took a scattered and disjointed set of colors, fonts, and graphics and built a thorough and robust design system. He asked thoughtful questions and considered each design problem from multiple perspectives. He listened - Oh, what a great listener he is! He handled complex design problems, overlapping deadlines, conflicting priorities, and exacting stakeholders with grace and calm. Dennis excelled at collaborating cross-functionally and both integrating and iterating on feedback. Dennis never shied away from a challenge, no matter how ambiguous or ill-defined the ultimate goal was. He shined in the startup environment, and I am thankful for the time I was able to spend working with him and learning from him."
— Erin, Sr Manager of Financial Strategy @ Northstar
"Dennis was one of the most humble and pleasant designers I worked with. His work speaks for itself. He's a systems thinker, capable of understanding the problem with a holistic view and arriving at a range of creative solutions for the best product experience. Excellent speaker, great communicator, and above all, a compassionate human with a heart of gold. 10/10 would work together again in a heartbeat."
— Jimmy, Head of Design @ Subject
"Dennis is an incredible designer, one of the best I have ever worked with in my whole career. He's on top of the design system, hyper-organized, and can push visual designs to world-class standard.
Dennis is open to feedback and never takes it personally which is one of the most important qualities as a designer. He's great at facilitating and leading conversations in meetings especially when topics become technical.
Dennis checks in with his team members often and tries to help out if we are blocked by something. He brings his true self to the workspace which helps us open up to him too."
— Risa, Sr Designer @ Netflix
"Dennis was an absolute pleasure to work with at Mothership. As an engineer developing the company's web-based dashboard, I quickly discovered that - in addition to being an excellent designer - Dennis is a great communicator who understands the technical challenges that his coworkers deal with and takes them in stride. That, I think, is part of his greatest strength: a breadth of competence that extends past his core responsibilities and into all of the miscellaneous odds and ends that come up when you're wearing many hats at a startup.
I feel it's also worth mentioning that he makes the chillest music and has a highly-refined palette for coffee. Ask him about both if you get the chance."
— John, Sr Engineer @ Mothership
"Dennis is a brilliant and thoughtful Design leader. I had the distinct pleasure of working with Dennis for 3 years during his time with Northstar in a cross-functional capacity. He excels at cross-functional collaboration and coordination on design builds, I always looked forward to working together as he always took the time to explain design concepts, user experience, and optional paths within wire frames.
Dennis built the Northstar design team from the ground up and always delivered high quality work. His dedication to the Northstar mission and personal finances was evident daily and you cannot ask for a more passionate Leader & Designer who believes in what he is doing. I highly recommend Dennis and hope to have the opportunity to work together again in the future."
"I worked with Dennis for 6 months under his leadership. It was the most outstanding mentorship I've received throughout my professional career. Dennis is a natural leader with incredible design experience. He is always on top of the trends, but beyond that he is strategic, collaborative, imaginative, and focused. He has a special talent for architecting incredibly complex design systems that are highly scalable and easy to use.
On top of exceeding my every expectation at work, he is one of the kindest and most empathetic human beings I've ever met. It was an absolute honor to work with Dennis and to grow so much as a designer during our time together."
— Karlee, Sr Product Designer @ Mothership
Select Work
Making financial wellness for the 100% at Northstar
My most recent full-time role, where I led our design efforts as the Head of Design. I worked on our product, was involved in strategic business decisions, and managed a talented incredible design team as we built the future of financial wellness.
I was involved in shipping countless features including Cash Flow, Retirement Calculator, Emergency Fund, Multicurrency Support, Global Advisors, Action Plan, Healthcare Comparison, and more.
I was also in charge of creating and managing our design system, Bodega, at scale as we expanded our product offerings and pitched to larger companies. My contributions led to closing a $24.4M round of funding from GGV as well as landing deals with Snap, Workday, Discord, Superhuman, Nerdwallet, and more.
Building the future of freight for growing businesses at Mothership
A previous full-time job, where I led the design team to work on modern solutions for freight delivery and ordering.
I worked on the brand, website, our web application, and our native mobile app while hiring a design team. I built the design system and helped Mothership scale its products from supporting just a few hundred shipments to thousands daily through user experience, automation, and a scalable design language across the company.
Creating your ultimate financial friend at Dave
In a previous full-time job, I was hired as the first designer at Dave back in 2018. The company has since gone public via a deal valued at $4B.
We made the world’s friendliest banking product that automatically budgets, offers $250 of overdraft advances at no interest, and helps find new job opportunities. I created the design system there and worked on the transition to becoming a bank, advances, side hustle, and our growth efforts to scale to more than 10M+ users.
Help the world’s top companies build and ship amazing products at MetaLab
In a previous full-time job, I worked at MetaLab as a product designer and got to work on a vast amount of projects.
I was able to work with large clients like Uber and Keller Williams, to smaller startup projects like Ambi and EagleView. We worked with teams on everything from user research to high-fidelity handoff with internal teams. I also worked with a few other designers on the new MetaLab marketing site, changing how we communicated our work with prospective clients.
Creating soundscapes and sonal experiences at Cordio Music
Outside of design, I produce music under the alias Cordio. I've been a musician for 14 years and have been releasing music for the past 4 years. To date, I have released 15 projects. You can listen to my first full-length album, Sonder, on all platforms now.
My music is best described as ambient, hip-hop instrumental music, inspired from the music I grew up on with modern minimal, jazz, electronic, and beat music genre influences. Some of my main influences are Nujabes, Shigeto, Teebs, Flying Lotus, MF Doom, Stlndrms, J Dilla, Tycho, Baths, Nosaj Thing, Shlohmo, and Aphex Twin.
I design all my own cover artwork, work on sound design for apps, and make custom music for podcasts/videos/films. Currently open to music and sound projects.
Helping people find the next place to call home at Keller Williams
Worked on these projects with a team of designers during my time at MetaLab. We worked closely with the Keller Williams team to create a brand new experience around their web and mobile apps, including a brand new initiative called Keller Covered.
The new web and mobile product helps people find, buy, and sell homes. We even designed neighborhoods, a full home buying guide, a recommendation algorithm, a way to purchase insurance, and more.
Other Work
Design Videos
Over the past 8 years, I've been making videos on tech and design including strategy, interviewing, tips/tricks, and more. I have over 250 videos you can watch.
Etsy Store
In my free time, I create apparel, posters, stickers, resources and more that I sell on Etsy. Feel free to pick up something for yourself or a friend!
Dribbble
Where I post bits and pieces of work that I am able to share publicly. I post full-time work, personal projects, music and more here.
OS Icons
A set of custom iOS icons I made all from scratch to make your iPhone more streamlined, sleek, uniform. Over 100+ icons to mix and match, free setup guide, and free wallpapers included as well.
My Coffee Blog
My personal blog about coffee methods, roasts, and shops that I've tried and rated. Designed and coded by yours truly.
The Rate of Change
My personal blog that I've written 100+ articles for over the past few years.
Prompter
A tool that creates randomized prompts for artists and illustrators to use. A side project designed and coded by yours truly.
Uncle Kragers
A salsa delivery app that I worked on back in 2013. Users were able to order Kragers's salsa on demand and have it delivered that day.
12 Ounce
A coffee subscription product where you could get unlimited coffee each month. I worked on the mobile app, brand, illustrations, and rails app in 2012.
12ounceapp.com
Let's work together
© 2012 - 2024