Richard Ballermann
Product, Web & Brand Design

Hi, I'm Richard, a designer who's been knee deep in product for the past 6 years and moonlighting as a brand creative. I straddle the line of systematic thinking and visual aesthetics. From strategic UX work, to user interfaces, to pure creative expression and beyond.I'm Richard. For more than a decade I've worked at the collision point between systems thinking and visual instinct—a dangerous little intersection where research exposes the lies, obvious answers are treated as suspects, and lifeless digital products are shocked until a pulse returns.Hi, I'm Richard. I've designed products and brands for many years. I plan things, talk to users, check what works, and make everything look good. Goal is people feel good. Many jobs. One Richard.I am Richard. For more than ten years I have concerned myself with the proper union of systems and appearance. I inquire into what people require, consider what the evidence permits, and give products and identities a form fit for respectable company.I am Richard. For more than ten years I have walked where systems meet form, listening for what people need and testing what the evidence reveals. Strategy sets the path. Craft gives the work a spirit worth carrying forward.I'm Richard. For more than ten years I have worked in strategy, research, measurement, products, and brands. Some people specialize in one thing. I specialize in all the things connecting correctly, which is its own specialty when you think about it.I'm Richard. For more than ten years I have studied what people need, measured what works, and refined how products and brands present themselves. I account for the system and its appearance. Neither is permitted to fail the other.

My priorities as a designer are to focus on what users really need when making decisions, aim for the simplest useful solution, and sweat the small details that make an experience feel polished.The rule is simple, though committees have spent fortunes trying to avoid it: find what people truly need, strip away the ceremonial clutter, then pursue every last visual detail until the whole thing feels inevitable.What matters to me: Learn what people need, make the simplest thing that works, and polish tiny details. Goal: looks good, feels good. Simple is good. Good-looking simple is better.I first determine what people truly require, for it is poor manners to burden them with one’s own confusion. I then pursue the simplest useful answer and attend to every detail until the result acquits itself handsomely.I begin with what people truly need, for a false foundation leads every later choice astray. I clear the path to its simplest useful form and tend the smallest details. Great journeys are often decided by them.I focus on what people actually need, because designing for what they do not need is technically the opposite of helping. Then I make the simplest useful solution and perfect every detail. Simple is the destination. Details are how I arrive there, one detail at a time.I determine what people need before I design anything. I then remove every obstacle that does not serve them. The final details receive the same attention as the first decision. There is no reason for the experience to feel unfinished.