Adam Zabel-Wirdak
✌️

Adam Zabel-Wirdak

Product Design in Lucerne, Switzerland, He/Him

New to Switzerland and looking for full time, freelance or contract work! Reach out and say hi!

A month ago

About

I'm a husband, dog dad, carbohydrate connoisseur, DIY enthusiast, avid learner, and generally curious person. Professionally, I'm a product designer and design manager helping people make cool things on the internet.

I've been a graphic designer, art director, product designer, design manager and director. I've been in positions where I've been the only designer in a company and others where I've managed 100+ people globally. I've worked for creative agencies, tech companies and startups across a range of industries including healthcare, consumer tech, influencer marketing, blockchain, online learning and dogs. Life's weird, but it's been fun.

Capable of delivering high-quality designs as well as building and managing high-performing teams, I like learning quickly, getting my hands dirty, and working closely with engineers and product managers to create products that make an impact. If that sounds like something you need help with, I'm always happy to chat.

Work Experience

2021 — 2024
Portland, ME / Remote

Wheel is a marketplace Telehealth company that empowers virtual-care clinicians to work with greater flexibility while providing enterprise companies with the infrastructure and clinical workforce they need to deliver scalable virtual care services nationwide.

Hired as the sole designer, I started my time at Wheel designing across product, sales, marketing and brand. As the company grew, I built the product design and UX research team and transitioned into the 'player-coach' role, simultaneously managing the team while still contributing design work where needed.

As the Senior Manager, Product Design, I was ultimately responsible for maintaining the quality of design and research across all of our internal and external products. As company and team priorities changed, I took on additional roles and responsibilities including quarterly planning, team resourcing, career planning, goal setting, design thinking workshops, company training, project management, sales engagements, platform integrations and DesignOps tokenization.

2020 — 2021
Denver, CO / Remote

Articulate is the #1 e‑learning platform for creating workplace training. I was brought onto the team to help with their newest product, Rise – a web-based course authoring tool where creating content was as easy as arranging media, text, and interactive blocks.

As a Senior Product Designer, I was focused on projects that spanned multiple teams and business areas and that required substantial reworking of the current platform organization and architecture. I also created the foundation of the company's first design system in an effort to help maintain consistency and increase efficiency across a distributed design and engineering team.

2019 — 2020
Director of Design at RADAR
Denver, CO

RADAR was a small startup focused on blockchain and crypto currency projects. They initially found success with their flagship product RADAR RELAY, a decentralized exchange that enabled peer-to-peer trading of cryptocurrencies, before expanding into other software and infrastructure services.

As the Director of Design, I was both a manager of the small design team and an individual contributor across all product, sales, marketing, and brand design. As the first designer in that role, I implemented a holistic design process while establishing design's role in company-wide product decisions and OKRs.

Without any prior experience in the cryptocurrency or blockchain world, I was able to learn quickly and help launch 2 new product offerings (a NodeOps infrastructure platform and a Lightning payments platform), oversee the launch of a Lightning App Store, developer tools and onboarding educational materials in addition to managing a company rebrand.

2017 — 2018
New York, NY

Fohr is an influencer marketing company facilitating the industry transition from traditional advertising to the most effective and efficient channel: social media.

As the Lead Product Designer and manager of a small design team, I was responsible for the design of both the software platform as well as the Fohr brand.

On the platform side, I led the team through a full analysis, redesign and rebuild of the SaaS product and tools. Implementing new UX and user testing practices for the team, I helped build a platform that allowed clients to create, manage, analyze and report on influencer campaigns and influencers to access industry-first tools for managing their businesses.

On the brand side, I led the team through a complete brand redesign, including a new identity, style guides, marketing collateral, print design and software integration.

2015 — 2017
New York, NY

After almost 6 years in the agency space, I transitioned into an in-house product design role at BARK, a tech company making products and services for dogs.

As the Lead Product Designer, I was responsible for every step in the design process: ideation, roadmapping, wireframing, user research, UI design, QA, and validation. I helped implement new UX methodologies, user testing practices and created the companies first research-specific role.

I worked across most BARK platforms including BarkBox (subscription), BarkShop (e-commerce), and BarkPost (editorial) along with other specialty assignments for the dog-focused company.

2010 — 2015
Designer & Art Director at Rosetta
San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles and New York

I started my design career at Rosetta (formerly Level Studios), a USA-based creative agency.

Initially, I worked on digital, print and branding projects for the internal Marketing team.

I was chosen to work on a specialized consumer educational project for Apple called iBooks Author. Continuing the project for almost 2 years, I became Lead Designer of the account and was responsible for the design, production and client relationship of every project and the management of the national and international teams of designers and production artists.

Finally, after moving to New York, I became responsible for the design and art direction of client websites, mobile apps, pitches and email campaigns for top clients including AT&T, Charles Schwab, Directv, and VF Corp (Lee, Smartwool, Wrangler, etc).

Education

Bachelors of Fine Art at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo, CA

Contact

LinkedIn
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