Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you?
My name is Mick, I'm a UI/UX Designer & Design Technologist living in Austin, TX.
I specialize in crafting intuitive, beautiful experiences that solve real problems. I’m always searching for what works, refining what doesn’t, and bringing thoughtful, impactful design to life. My passion lies in building useful, human-centered products that help people thrive and elevate everyday experiences.
About me
La vita mia
I share my life with my wife, a gifted interior designer, and our three adventurous kids, along with a Catahoula leopard dog, two cats, and a milk snake. When I’m not designing, I’m playing fiddle, crafting art, carving pipes, or welding—always creating something.
I’m fascinated by the intersection of art and engineering, where form meets function. Design, to me, is more than aesthetics, it’s problem-solving, storytelling, and bringing clarity to complexity. With a background in code and digital experiences, I refine products that feel intuitive and human.
At my core, I’m a builder and a fixer, drawn to making things simple, seamless, and useful, so people can focus on what truly matters.
Skills & Expertise
Visual Design
95%
UI Design
95%
UX Design
90%
Product Design
65%
Web Design
95%
Mobile Design
60%
Branding
85%
Coding
75%
Prototyping
85%
Design Thinking
60%
Workshops
50%
Motion Graphics
80%
Many designs make new problems, design should solve problems. - Dieter Rams
Some nice things said about me...
"Mick is one of the most unique individuals I've worked with, with the capability to handle front end code, visual interface design, and User Experience. He is a true artist, as well, creating some spectacular abstract paintings by night, while by day working within corporate and brand guidelines and utilizing them to their limits. We share the same understanding that a great product starts with understanding the problem and ends with reducing friction for the user as much as possible in solving that problem. Working with him might entail his introducing you to some interesting things to smell, but they're usually largely pleasant, if unique. It's how you know he likes you!" See original post
"I didn't get to spend as much time working directly with Mick as I would have liked, but I was fortunate to get frequent opportunities to speak with him and witness some of his work. Mick has a great deal of passion for design, and he brings positivity and joy to those he interacts with. I remember working with him on a sort of stop light interaction design, and he was so adept at simply communicating his idea, that I found it quite easy to envision his intended design.
Mick's creativity is bolstered by his thoughtful, analytical approach. While I worked with him, he continuously sought improvements to our design philosophy. By identifying the pain points developers were experiencing, he was able to quickly hone in on solutions that could ameliorate them. He shows a real commitment to teaching, learning, and making work for others easier in whatever way he can."
See original post
"Mick has the ability to create a design that is suited for your personal project. His skills and capabilities come not only from experience in his craft but also with his talent and creativity. He is especially able to help you come up with something even if your just a little Wishy washy and not sure exactly what you want. I highly recommend his services." See original post
"We hired Mick to take the lead on a complex software platform meant to automate and aid governance boards in their duties. Few people I've ever worked with could make a project like that fun to work on, fewer could make the software beautiful and useful at the same time, and only one person I've ever worked with could do all of this AND tell you a true story about how the scary bad guy from Breaking Bad NEARLY bought (but didn't in the end buy) their accordion. Mick is that person.
I could go on for many more paragraphs about the fascinating things you'll hear from Mick when he's nonchalantly remind of things like his time studying the Russian method of clowning from an expert back in Chicago, but A) I won't be able to do any of these stories justice, and B) that's probably not what you want to hire Mick for.
The software he ended up designing for the governance board was so beautiful and so much easier to use, the whole team got excited. Very excited. About their board governance platform.
Shortly thereafter we recruited Mick to work on an IoT platform, one which matched the first version of the board governance software in oppressive blandness. We asked Mick to envision what the software could look like, while he was ramping up on the platform and the state of the current software build. In a couple weeks, most of which he spent reading dozens of pages of Confluence notes to catch up with the project, he also, in his "spare time," created an interactive HTML prototype of what the app could look like if we started over. It was responsive (meaning it adapted to being loaded on a mobile device versus a desktop), it actually looked good (a very visually underwhelming platform came to life in CSI-style, dark-themed "high tech" glow), and best of all it was intuitive (something that was never said about the platform before). That little prototype he whipped up in such a short time is still being used as a North Star on that project.
Mick is limitlessly creative, intensely focused on the idea that design is about how a thing works just as much as how beautiful it is (he would probably say you can't really have one without the other), a pleasure to work with, and quite honestly the most interesting man in the world." See original post