Patrick Altair McDonald

Patrick Altair McDonald

Designer in Vancouver, He/Him

About

I’m an Irish/Canadian designer who likes to code. I’m interested in work with expressive typography, interactivity, and storytelling.

Projects

2023

A simple, public-facing tool for job candidates to understand their annualized compensation, the value of their stock options, and the probability of those options reaching maturity

2021

I designed this concept of a digital bookshelf to house longform essays on the history of finance that adds some fun, colour and levity to each essay.

2020

I created a distinct visual language for McAfee Labs apart from their parent brand and translated their typical PDFs into an interactive page of graphs and videos.

2020

McAfee commissioned me to write, design and develop an educational visual essay on an aspect of their company. I elected to write about quantum computers and the threat they pose to encryption.

Side Projects

2017

I designed and developed a digital timeline that charts the history of futuristic clothing in media and art.

2015

A fashion editorial I designed and developed on how the sea has shaped the way we dress today.

Writing

2016

Discussing how attempting to remake the past still creates something new.

2014

My rant on how 1.618 is overrated.

Work Experience

2024 — Now

I work as an IC designer in the Square business unit, mostly on squareup.com.

2022 — 2023
Remote

I was on the Growth team at Compound. My domain focused on customer attraction and conversion. A broad range that encompassed marketing, product design and branding. Some example projects were improving onboarding flow, creating educational essays, and designing public-facing tools.

2014 — 2022
Remote

I was a freelance designer and developer. I created work for tech companies like Google, font foundries like Tiro and universities like Plymouth College of Art. I also had a couple of my websites exhibited at the Tate Modern.

2020 — 2020
Vancouver

I taught “Designing for Screens”, a 20-person university course for interaction design students where they learned to design and develop websites.

Education

2010 — 2014
BA in Visual Communication at Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin, Ireland

First Class Honours

2013 — 2013
Paris, France

Erasmus foreign exchange

Contact

Twitter
Mastodon

Teams

Past
Compound Design