Jesse Rego
—Designer
Hello, I’m a designer
focused on consistency,
adoption, and building
UI that makes products easier for people to use.
With 15 years in product design, I specialize in global frameworks, consumer experiences, and backend systems, driving impact at companies of every size.
I build frameworks and systems that align teams, improve quality, and keep design work moving forward with focus and consistency.
I make your life easier with reusable patterns and tools, so you can focus on solving user problems and pushing creativity.
I build systems that reduce delivery risk, boost velocity, and align design decisions with product goals, so roadmaps hit with more confidence.
.me {role: platform-designer;
skills: systems-driven;
engineer: false;
language: "frameworks, patterns, ux, dev";
fluency: 100%;}
Selected Work
Archived Projects
Platform UI Libraries
Design reviews revealed a gap between vision and feasibility—designers produced unbuildable UIs, PMs praised misleading visuals, and developers improvised. The root cause: a Sketch-to-Figma transition overlapping with the rollout of the React-based Canvas Design System kit.
Project: XpressO x REACT
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Security On-boarding
Partnered with research to support the merger of Security and XWT teams—identifying redundancies, guiding feature development, and creating a unified security administrator persona to align both groups around a shared vision of the evolving security space.
Project: Security
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Support Case Delegation
Led a cross-functional initiative to streamline Workday Support case delegation. Through multi-team research and workshops, uncovered misaligned workflows and risks, then delivered a scoped, prioritized roadmap that enabled clearer planning, resourcing, and a scalable path forward.
Project: IIR Case Routing
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Sneaker Junky
Sneaker Junky was an ongoing SEO project uniting sneaker culture in one hub. Designed to crowdsource content through a prize-based reward system, it continues as a collaborative, incentive-driven platform for sneaker enthusiasts.
Project: Sneaker Catalog
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Minute Mail
Minute Mail is a self-serve, cross-device ad design tool built on Angular, Node, Express, and MongoDB. Currently in development, it features enterprise-grade login, responsive toolsets, and scalable performance—aimed at launching mid-2015.
Project: Mail in a Minute
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Yuzu™ by Barnes & Noble
Served as Lead Visual Designer for MacOS and Web on the Yuzu e-reader, creating and maintaining the style guide while driving consistency across platforms.
Project: iOS e-Reader
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Yuzu™ Recruiting
I designed and built the Yuzu™ recruiting site with a styled Taleo API, creating a smooth applicant flow that elevated HR’s presence and freed engineering to focus on a key product launch.
Project: Recruiting Site
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Mr Sketch
mrsketch.io is a MEAN stack single-page app built to teach new hires and UX teams the power of Sketch 3. Designed to feel like a native app, it’s fully responsive, allowing users to keep it open in any orientation while working.
Project: mrsketch.io
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National Geographic Channel
I designed nine motorcycles for National Geographic’s Let it Ride, featured in 10 episodes across 15+ countries, with credits for illustration, photo manipulation, and 3D visualization.
Project: Let it Ride
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Fun with Motion
As a self-taught designer, I’m always hungry to learn new skills. Back in 2009, a few weeks of curiosity led me to experiment with Cinema 4D, which quickly became my launchpad into the world of After Effects.
Project: Expirements
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Annual Parts Catalog
The 2014 Ness campaign was a tightly orchestrated effort, timed to engage each major marketing channel with precision. After fueling the B2B pipeline, we launched print and web campaigns in sync for maximum impact.
Project: Arlen Ness Hardcopy
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Typography Explorations
Print let me push the boundaries of typography, while UI keeps those explorations grounded and practical. Here’s a small selection of print examples.
Project: Arlen Ness PR Campaigns
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ArlenNess.com
A move from aspDotnet to a more stable / optimized content management system. All new functionality, UX, and UI were all introduced.
Project: Arlenness.com
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Scalability
Empathy
Clarity
Collaboration
As a Platform UX and Design Systems designer, I value scalability, creating frameworks and components that grow seamlessly with products and organizations. Empathy grounds my work, ensuring that both end-users and cross-functional partners feel supported by the systems I build. Clarity is my compass, driving me to simplify complexity and make patterns intuitive, accessible, and easy to adopt. And through collaboration, I bridge design and engineering, aligning diverse stakeholders so that our systems are not just functional, but embraced and impactful across the enterprise.
My path started with psychology, detoured through power-sports, marketing, and web design, and eventually landed in product design—where I found my groove. With a love for visuals and a focus on users, I design systems that feel human at every level: from big-picture strategy to seamless frameworks to those small, delightful details. Over the past 12 years, I’ve worn many hats—visual designer, interaction designer, researcher, print and motion creator, 3D modeler, UI developer, and most recently, AI specialist. Fueled by endless curiosity as a maker, I’ve built an expansive toolkit and applied it across companies of all sizes.
Workday
Senior Product Designer
My role spanned product, platform, and design systems, with a focus on bridging design and development. I’ve contributed to recruiting, financials, support and security products, while leading platform efforts to define and deliver reusable frameworks and core components across XpressO and React.
Barnes & Noble
Senior Visual Designer
At Barnes & Noble’s Yuzu™, I led visual design for Mac OS and Android e-readers, creating style guides, feature masters, and iOS panel flows. I introduced Sketch 3 to streamline workflows and improve productivity, and I designed and coded the Yuzu recruiting site with Taleo API integration, delivering a seamless applicant experience and freeing development resources for product launch.
Arlen Ness Ent.
Senior UI Designer
I scaled a two-person team into a full design studio producing print, web, and video media. I led a successful rebrand of ArlenNess.com, shifting from a B2B model to a more user-friendly B2C experience, improving customer engagement and acquisition. By managing creative resources, budgets, and in-house production, I cut costs, improved processes, and enhanced team capabilities while driving profitability.
Think of me as the UX glue between design systems and platform engineering. I prototype, document, and evolve reusable patterns that drive adoption across teams. My superpower is aligning stakeholders around scalable frameworks—translating abstract patterns into shippable roadmaps. Whether I’m unblocking engineers, syncing with PMs, or showing execs the value of consistency, I focus on building design infrastructure that empowers everyone to move faster.
Skills
AI Collaboration
I’ve spent nearly 1,000 hours across ChatGPT, Claude, MidJourney, NotebookLM, and Gemini, co-building this portfolio as a vibe-code project: 50% AI, 50% Jesse. Along the way, I’ve prototyped concepts, explored generative workflows, and built projects like an AI-powered Platform Historian for UX trend analysis, rapid visual exploration tools, and model-assisted design system enhancements. This work blends experimentation with strategy, making AI a true partner in my design practice.
UX & Interaction
The depth and fidelity of my wireframes or prototypes are often influenced by the development team’s needs—sometimes that means high-level concepts, and other times it requires near-production detail. Over the last year, I’ve focused heavily on improving documentation and communication around behavior: clearly capturing patterns, edge cases, and responsive logic to ensure a smooth handoff and alignment across teams. Whether it’s through annotated wireframes, embedded prototypes, or component specs, I view this stage as a critical bridge between design thinking and real-world implementation.
Visual Design
Visual design is where it all began for me—my gateway into the creative world. I got my start in print, where precision mattered and every pixel, point, and pica had a purpose. That foundation gave me a deep respect for structure, hierarchy, and craftsmanship. To this day, redlines and spec work feel therapeutic; I find calm in the details, and satisfaction in bringing order and clarity to visual chaos.
Front-End Development
I'm comfortable working with front-end code and increasingly interested in how back-end systems influence the integration and scalability of design systems. Over time, I've come to appreciate how backend architecture—APIs, data structures, and platform frameworks—can directly impact the efficiency and consistency with which design systems are adopted across large-scale products. Understanding both sides of the stack helps me design more resilient, flexible systems that align with real development constraints and opportunities.
Motion & 3D
Motion and 3D design started as a side pursuit—something I picked up a few years ago to experiment with typography, and it quickly became a creative outlet I genuinely enjoy. While it’s a time intensive and highly specialized skill, I’ve found it to be an effective way to create moments that grab attention and leave an impression. I’ve mostly focused on quick video stings, lower thirds, and static frames, but even with lightweight use, the results are consistently impactful and rewarding.
My Stack
