Riz Sharzaman

Started RizForge so small and service businesses can work with one designer from start to finish: research, brand, UX/UI, the build, and the CRM that keeps leads from slipping away. Recent work: • Shullin Boodoo Carpet: rebranded an established flooring company from the logo up and built its Astro site, with service guides, real project stories and an estimate form that lands straight in the CRM. • Shy's Henna Art: designed and built a portfolio-led site with separate inquiry paths for private, bridal and event bookings. • ZilalWorks (pre-launch): a custom storefront for a music artist with an editable catalog, Stripe checkout, order records and protected downloads. • Ol' Times Cigars: took over a broken website and CMS, got it working again, and connected signups and purchases to the CRM with automatic customer emails. • GoHighLevel for every client: forms, calendars and purchases feed contacts and pipelines, and every inquiry gets an automatic response. • RizForge Ops: designed and built the studio's own operations app with Next.js, React, TypeScript and Supabase. Used every day. Also build working website concepts for trades like electrical, plumbing and roofing, and produce short-form video and social content. The site scroll-throughs on this profile come from that work.

Led UI/UX at the U.S. headquarters of an international stairlift company, first heading the design team and later working inside the merged design and marketing department. • Led the visual direction for the 2022 international website redesign. It started with the German site, which lagged far behind the other markets, and the direction executives approved was adapted for the UK, Italy, the U.S., Canada and regional offices. • Worked side by side with a UX designer and three developers on navigation, product education, responsive pages and a guided multi-step quote flow. • Designed key pieces directly, including the UK homepage hero, and supported Acorn Club, the app for existing customers. • Built campaign microsites far enough ahead of demand that marketing had a backlog ready to launch. • Redesigned websites for two sister companies, created social campaign graphics after the teams merged, and redesigned the HR employee handbook.

Started as a design intern at a technology company building training and interactive products for defense, government and commercial clients, including Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Army. Promoted twice. • With the art director, pitched and delivered a rebrand that replaced a dated late-'90s identity, then rolled it out across business cards, collateral, presentations and environmental graphics. • Designed print, large-format panels and booth graphics for I/ITSEC, the major training and simulation conference. • Designed interface and visual elements for VR and AR applications across several headsets, including Microsoft HoloLens. • First real UX project: filmed a veterans' remembrance trip to Washington, D.C., in 360°, then led the experience design for a hospice VR app that turned about 20 hours of footage into navigable chapters for veterans in hospice care who couldn't make the trip. The project made local news. • Learned After Effects on the job and produced motion graphics, titles and video for company media.