Radu Vucea ⭐️

Leading AR/VR Design @ Reality Labs

Mento Design Academy

Our mission is to help young professionals and career-switchers transition faster and smoother to a career in UX, UI, or Product Design by teaching the right skills, the right way.

Founder

MYBENEFITS

Advisor & Investor

FlairMakers

ixperi

Building a Digital Product Design Studio has been a dream of mine for a long time.

In early 2021, I finally decided to give it a go, and I co-founded ixperi with the mission of creating an elite design team that could deliver exceptional quality and impact.

In just three years, completely bootstrapped, my team and I:

→ Grew the studio to 13 stellar Product Designers and Product Managers
→ Built a fantastic culture of learning, development, and excellence through mentorship and coaching
→ Went from $0 to $1M in yearly revenue
→ Designed and delivered for high growth start-ups like Fresha, FlowX and Jellysmack

Co-Founder, Exit in 2023

Actio

Chief Design Officer

VP, Product Design

Fitbit (now part of Google)

In my role of Product Design Manager at Fitbit, I was initially in charge of building from the ground up and leading the whole design team in Bucharest.

In my three years in this role I have:

→ Built the Product Design team in Bucharest, 15 strong, influencing the headcount strategy to bring in key roles such as UX Research and Design Ops.
→ Created an amazing design culture, recognized company-wide, based on transparency, authenticity, trust, and support, which enabled shipping successful products while maintaining a near-zero attrition rate.
→ Established processes and opportunities that enabled team growth, such as reviews, critiques, and knowledge sharing sessions and events such as Learning Friday and Friday Speaker Series.
→ Influenced the company roadmap and strategy to ship the first line of Fitbit products for kids.
→ Shipped several products that had a revenue and company strategy impact, such as Active Zone Minutes and Fitbit Premium, the latter bringing in over 1,000,000 subscribers in under one year.

Product Design Manager

While in my role as a Senior Product Designer at Fitbit I owned the development of the Fitbit App Gallery from the ground up.

Initially meant to support our first smartwatch, the Ionic, with custom content that users could download, it now supports almost a dozen Fitbit smart devices, counts over 12,000 apps, and watch faces, all of which have been downloaded over 245 Million times.

The Fitbit App Gallery also attracted a thriving community of over 1,000 developers, many of them creating a steady stream of income through creating content for Fitbit.

Senior Product Designer

Vector Watch

While in my role at Vector Watch I wore many hats, as any does in a startup.

From redesigning the company's website with a goal to increase sales — to creating marketing assets in partnership with our marketing department to create awareness, no day was the same.

My most significant achievement, however, has been creating the Vector Developer Portal from the ground up, an easy-to-use web-based tool anyone could use to create a custom watch face or app for their Vector Watch.

It was exceptionally received, gathering over 1800 content creators and over 3000 watch faces and apps in just a few months.

Vector Watch was acquired in 2017 by Fitbit, and I went to be a Product Designer and Design Manager for them.

Product Designer

Adobe

In my time at Adobe, I moved from a Graphic Designer role in the marketing department to a Visual Designer role for the same product and, ultimately, for the last two years, to a Product Designer role as part of the innovation team tasked with validating next-generation products for Adobe.

Through a Lean Startup methodology we were validating product ideas and opportunities, at a fast pace, employing user interviews, prototyping and usability testing, working within a cross-functional team of developers, product managers and designers.

The most notable achievement is validating the MVP for what would become Adobe Stock and the Libraries feature inside Photoshop, Illustrator and other five Adobe CC products.

Various

Freelance Digital Designer

I am a Senior Design Executive, Investor, and Advisor who began his career back in 2005. Since then, I had the opportunity to work for startups, design studios, and big brands alike, having built products and design teams from scratch for companies like Adobe and Fitbit.

More recently, I served as Chief Design Officer for Berlin-based start-up Actio. With a drive for entrepreneurship, I founded my own Product Design Studio back in 2020 and grew that to a 7 figure yearly revenue in less than two years, exiting in late 2023. I now serve as an advisor and investor for several tech start-ups across the world.

My happy place is helping other designers grow and create stellar work. Having hired and mentored hundreds of designers to date, I'm currently focused on scaling up my Design Academy, founded three years ago.

Feel free to contact me for the following:
* Public speaking opportunities (panels, podcasts, events, corporate training)
* Advisory roles on Product Design
* Opportunities on the level of Co-Founder or Senior Design Leadership

Make sure to check my recommendations on my profile here if you'd like to know what it's like to work with me.

American Express

Focusing on creating designs and artifacts for the existing and new Servicing Portals for Credit and Collections in partnership with key stakeholders (Operations, Technology, Risk Management and Strategy) enabling Specialists to provide superior service in the phone channel as well as support integrated digital products used by our Customers to achieve their goals.

UX Designer

Developed custom learning plans for students of varying ages, learning styles, and developmental abilities. 
• Analyzed client’s unique learning styles and challenges to provide customized curricula.
• Delivered age-appropriate lessons, and developed unique activities (i.e. pen-pal programs, etc) which are both engaging and consumable for students with different learning styles and developmental needs. 
• Defined key learning milestones for each student based on their goals, and developed custom progress reports for the students and their parents or tutoring sponsor. 
• Students achieved a full-level jump in standard school programs within 3 months of tutoring.

Freelance Content Creator and Teacher

中国中纺集团公司，Chinatex Corporation

Expand audience and increase sales by delivering textile designs which perform well with our top client’s target markets. 
• Leveraged market research trends and customer preferences to develop and pitch unique textile designs which target younger audiences, leading to increased business revenue and brand exposure for our clients. 
• Optimized quality control process, decreasing time spent on quality control tasks by 64 hours a month.
• Improved remote team collaboration and efficiency by developing a fully-digitized, searchable textile library for new Chinatex USA brands.

Fundwell

Developed a web-based experience for a fintech startup, which was focused on optimizing the workflow of financial advisors by reducing time spent on day-to-day tasks.

Scope of work includes: 
+Collaborating with stakeholders and UX strategists, concept development, research, sketching, wireframing, interface design, prototyping, and usability testing. 
+ Defined problem space by analyzing reports and data, as well as conducting user research.
+ Generated user insights through a collection of primary and secondary research data using qualitative and quantitative data. 
+ Leveraged research methodology including 1:1 user interviews, end-to-end user journey mapping, affinity mapping, etc., during ideation of possible solutions based on the development of empathy toward user pain points.
+ Strategized and discovered solutions benefitting both the business and its customers. Communicated project objectives, processes, and constraints to stakeholders to prioritize client deliverables.
+ Analyzed competing market products to gain insights into competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. 
+ Synthesized research insights and ideated design solutions. Developed user interface, design system, and branding elements. 
+ Delivered interactive prototypes with experience-enhancing layouts, visual hierarchy, and UX patterns. 
+ Discovered usability problems by implementing and evaluating user experiences through 2 rounds of testing.
+ Refined and iterated wireframes and prototypes based on test findings and user feedback.

NYC Health + Hospitals

Designed a series of art and wellness collage workshops that help doctors and nurses discover the source of their fatigue through the process of crafting, self-reflecting, and group discussions. Achieved 90%+ participant satisfaction rate measured by post-session surveys.

Art Facilitator

Richard Solomon Artists Representative

+Created interactive social media content to reach and capture target audience interest and drive engagement. 
+Researched and reached out to new clients and potential jobs. 
+Revamped company’s online portfolio and present artworks that reflect current market trends in editorial and commercial genres. 
+Identified and recruited new artists with fresh perspectives to broaden the audience.
+Analyzed the existing internship program by conducting in-depth interviews with past participants to identify strengths, weaknesses and areas of opportunities. 
+Recruited new interns, and oversaw execution of the newly designed internship program. 
+Led and supervised the new interns and created social media content as a team .
+Designed printed materials for publications featuring rising agency artists.

Project Manager,  Content Creator, Graphic Designer

Ms. Lam Montessori School

Demonstrate educational concepts to young kids using the Montessori method. Observe and record student’s performance. Provide English-to-Chinese translation for teachers and parents to facilitate communication regarding learning goals and progress. Help students adapt to an immersive bilingual environment and Montessori style of learning that improves student retention.

Assistant Teacher

Ruby Cookie

Up-sell products by developing luxury, high-end, feminine brand aesthetics and overall theme. Designed and delivered quality branding materials such as logo and packaging.

Art Director, Designer

After Midnight Anthology- A KickStarter Campaign

Developed and oversaw all aspects of a KickStarter campaign for publishing an anthology of original art and stories. 
• Recruited 27 artists, coaching them to create intriguing stories and illustrations. 
• Ensured that 100% of artists delivered work on-time, enabling us to meet sketch, pre-print, and final print deadlines. 
• Managed all project marketing and promotion, which led us to reach 140% of the funding target in under 40 days.

Art Director, Graphic Designer, Illustrator

// Enable self-learning and turn complex problems into simple and enjoyable experiences through compelling visuals and insightful research.//

I am an emerging UX/UI designer with strong abilities to combine innovative design tools and methodologies through an empathetic, user-centered focus gained from my past teaching and art/design background. I enjoy the challenge of creating engaging visual design experiences that help people interact with the world in a smarter, easier, and enjoyable manner.

Let's talk !

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The Battle

Radu Vucea ⭐️

Jennifer Wu

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