Vixlet is a content sharing app helping brands grow their audience through a skinnable interface designed to cater to each affiliated brand

Role: Lead Product Designer
Focus: Design System & Visual Identity

Goal:

Lead the end-to-end design of a scalable content platform for Vixlet, a social ecosystem that allow users to collect, share, and engage with content organized around lifestyle categories and brand communities. The platform was designed to support both individual users and brand partners, including Porsche, the NHL, and the Miami Dolphins, allowing seamless branded experiences within the same core app framework.
This project spanned interaction design, motion systems, content gamification, brand identity, and scalable UI systems, culminating in two awarded design patents for unique UI models.

Challenge:

The initial product was in an early concept stage with no defined interaction patterns, UI structure, or visual identity. The challenge was to design a system that communicated the platform’s core value: connecting users to branded content communities while enabling dynamic content collection, sharing, and social engagement.

Approach:

Developed a color-coded framework where each category had its own visual identity, enhancing discoverability and navigation.

Introduced a gamification model built around customizable digital emblems with game-like assets that represent user achievements, subscriptions, and content collections. These patented emblems dynamically evolved ("crystallized") as engagement increased.

Designed an integrated badge notification system within the emblem UI to signal content unlocks, limited-time releases, or official branded content drops.

Built a skinnable app framework, allowing the product UI to be rebranded for partners while preserving the core interaction and product structure.

Led the design of the brand guidelines book covering UI, typography, color systems, motion behavior, and iconography for both internal teams and external clients.

Design Challenges:

Designing a flexible yet coherent UI system that supported both individual lifestyle interests and fully branded client experiences.
Creating interaction models for dynamic content creation, collection, and gamification that felt native to both consumer users and brand partners.
Integrating motion and system feedback in a way that enhanced usability while reinforcing the platform’s social and game-like dynamics.

Solutions:

Built a modular design system with themeable components that scaled from generic platform UI to fully branded skins.
Designed an emblem-based gamification framework that combined content discovery with progress indicators, badge notifications, and interactive feedback.
Developed custom iconography and motion behaviors, including animated emblems and state transitions that supported both functional clarity and playful interaction.
Partnered with engineering to translate these systems into performant, scalable interfaces across web and mobile.
Documented all brand and design standards in a comprehensive guideline used by both internal teams and clients.

A platform was created that seamlessly balanced brand customization with scalable core functionality. This enables users to engage with content by collecting, sharing, and building their own profile of lifestyle-based interests, while brands used the same system to build follower communities within the app ecosystem. UI and content architecture was ready for the app store that could be rapidly adapted for brand collaborations while retaining the consistency of the underlying product experience.

Brands Include:Music Brands:Van’s Warped Tour
Slipknot
Bandcamp
Live NationFinancial Brands:Wells FargoAmerican Express

Sports Brands:Miami DolphinsWomen's Tennis AssociationNFL

Powered multiple branded launches, including experiences for Porsche, the NHL, and the Miami Dolphins.
Increased engagement through emblem-based gamification and content notifications.
Streamlined design and engineering collaboration through a modular design system and detailed brand guidelines.
Awarded two design patents for novel UI models created during this project, reflecting innovation in interactive system design.Key Contributions:
Design Systems: Scalable frameworks for brandable interfaces, content categories, and gamified experiences
Gamification Design: Emblem systems, badge mechanics, and interactive progression models
Motion Systems: Animated icons, transitions, and interactive feedback mechanisms
Brand Systems: Comprehensive guidelines for UI, visual identity, and motion behaviors across client and platform use
Leadership: Directed cross-functional teams, facilitated design reviews, and drove iterative product development cycles
IP Development: Secured two awarded design patents for UI innovations