About

Howdy, I’m Jake.

I got my start in design as a visual and motion designer. Designing identities for brands and events taught me the importance of using design to communicate an idea.

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to work for Solo Stove. I was the second hire and first designer. In my time there, I developed a rebrand and oversaw its execution across web, packaging, video, and ads. Under my leadership we grew e-commerce conversions 30%. This experience gave me a taste for creating measurable business impact through design and collaboration.

From there, I transitioned into product design. First, I worked as a designer for Alkami, a Fintech company, where I grew from junior to principal in just two years. Partnering with Greg Sargent, I led design for both native mobile apps and built our white label design system, the Alkami Design Language. I had the honor to serve the team as a principal design lead through our successful IPO in 2021.

Since then I’ve carved out a niche for myself leading teams and building design systems for companies ranging from seed stage startups to those with 2000+ employees. And in recent years I’ve developed a love for engineering—slowly drifting closer and closer to the code so I can work directly in the final medium my work will take.

These days, my time is filled bouncing between Figma, code, and design crits where I love helping designers refine their skills. I currently support 20+ PDs and 180+ engineers who build with Verdant. Most recently I’ve been building a tool that enables everyone at Spring to design and build prototypes in code with the help of AI and our design system, Verdant.

Working each day to be a bit more faithful, present, joyful, gentle, strong, and selfless.