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Hi, I’m John! I help early startups and small businesses develop their brand and turn rough ideas into clean, usable, accessible products and sites. I’m quick to map a problem, talk with the people who use your product, and move from loose idea to prototype to live product. If you want a steady hand who plays well with engineering and gets things out the door, I’m your guy.…

John Irwin

Product Designer, UI Designer, UX Designer, +6

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Hi, I’m John! I help early startups and small businesses develop their brand and turn rough ideas into clean, usable, accessible products and sites. I’m quick to map a problem, talk with the people who use your product, and move from loose idea to prototype to live product. If you want a steady hand who plays well with engineering and gets things out the door, I’m your guy.…

Available to hire

Hi, I’m John! I help early startups and small businesses develop their brand and turn rough ideas into clean, usable, accessible products and sites. I’m quick to map a problem, talk with the people who use your product, and move from loose idea to prototype to live product. If you want a steady hand who plays well with engineering and gets things out the door, I’m your guy.

Skills

Experience Level

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Intermediate

Intermediate

Intermediate

Intermediate

Language

English

Fluent

Work Experience

Director of Product Design at Blockade Labs

March 1, 2025 - September 30, 2025

Led 0-to-1 product and UX for SaaS AI image-generation tools, scaling adoption to 250K+ users who produced 18M+ images. Partnered with engineering and ML to translate complex problems into actionable roadmaps, workflows, and specifications. Improved first-run flows and tutorials, boosting onboarding completion by 25%. Established critique cadences and spec standards that improved design-to-engineering handoff quality and predictability. Built a multi-surface design system across 750+ screens, unifying patterns and expediting delivery across web and mobile.

Director of Design, Enterprise at Scorpion

May 1, 2024 - September 30, 2025

Formed and led an 8-person product design team that shipped hundreds of accessible franchise and healthcare sites. Created a modular design system that increased design throughput by 66% and reduced development time by 30%. Defined WCAG-aligned accessibility standards, established KPIs, and drove adoption through training and exemplar patterns. Delivered 500+ hours of coaching across design, product management, and engineering to raise fluency and delivery velocity. Partnered with senior leadership to unify brand and product across tiers, sustaining 98% CSAT and contributing to $30M ARR.

Senior Product Designer at Scorpion

July 1, 2019 - September 30, 2025

Created and led website and branding design for nationally-recognized flagship franchise and healthcare clients. Led the enterprise team to exceed delivery stretch goals for 5 consecutive quarters.

Founder and Freelance Principal Designer at John Irwin Design

March 1, 2006 - Present

Art-directed cover sets, packaging, and digital assets, coordinating with labels to align creative direction to release timelines. Contributed design to albums that achieved Billboard #1, iTunes #1, and multiple Billboard Top 10 placements. Simplified ecommerce and media flows, increasing task completion and raising conversion rates by 20%. Partnered with startups and Grammy-winning artists across brand, product, and web, unifying identity and accelerating launches.