Leading design to increase human capability.
Let’s start a conversation (opens in a new tab)Human agency, by design
Experience across organizations and services
Featured case studies
M&T Bank / Service design
Fragmented lending journeys made it difficult to see where customers, employees, and systems were working against one another. I led a team that brought deep complexity into a future-state blueprint the business could use to coordinate changes.
NAMI Delaware / Social impact
The 988 campaign connects a recognizable number to a human need. Plain language and consistent messages across outdoor, print, and mobile touchpoints aim to make pathways to support easier to recognize.
Capital One / Interaction design
When testing exposed user friction, I assembled a small team to explore a simpler interaction. Prototyping and collaboration with legal helped turn the idea into a gesture-interface patent.
Vanguard / Experience strategy
A voice-interface opportunity also raised questions about security and readiness. I connected research, prototypes, client behavior, and system constraints so leaders could evaluate the experience as a whole.
Looking for the full range of visual and independent work?
Explore the portfolioRecommendations
Across UX, AI, research, education, and strategy.
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Van brings rare clarity, composure, and strategic imagination to complex situations, helping people turn uncertainty and diverse perspectives into stronger, more actionable outcomes.
Van is an exceptional human-centered designer who leads with kindness, inclusion, and collaboration, making every team he joins stronger and more thoughtful.
Van was instrumental in helping teams collaborate across a strategically important banking project, bringing diligence, responsibility, and skilled UX design to high-pressure delivery.
Van is a dynamic UX educator and design leader whose deep expertise, positive energy, and ability to inspire make him a trusted resource for emerging designers.
Van brings strategic structure to complex collaboration, helping teams develop clearer communication, stronger alignment, and more effective ways of working.
Van helped bring clarity, patience, and service design leadership to commercial banking transformation, turning service blueprints into the operating language for major initiatives.
How we work
We define the approach together, then work alongside your team to test it in practice. The aim is a system your people understand, can question, and can own.
Let’s talk about your challenge (opens in a new tab)Bring customer experience, employee work, policy, and technology into one view. Find the handoffs and decisions that need to change.
Use blueprints, prototypes, and clear narratives to make tradeoffs tangible and help leadership and delivery move together.
Explore where synthesis, simulation, and decision support can help, while keeping responsibility and human agency explicit.
Embed critique, decision rules, and working rhythms into your culture so that progress continues beyond the engagement.
The person in the room
I’ve led design at M&T Bank, Vanguard, ConsenSys, and Capital One, and taught at NYU. Across those roles, I kept finding the same work: helping people make sense of complexity and turn a shared direction into something they could deliver.
Today, I lead branding, digital experience, and design strategy engagements for consulting, nonprofit, and growth-stage clients, combining design, illustration, storytelling, and systems thinking.
Led the redesign of the Commercial Bank experience at M&T Bank across digital and physical touchpoints.
Led product design, strategy, and branding for emerging Ethereum startups at ConsenSys.
Co-developed and taught NYU’s UX program and authored the curriculum for a specialized User Experience Diploma.
Read the NYU storyAI DESIGN LAB WORKING PROTOTYPES
Small, working explorations in care, communication, and everyday agency.
Notice what you need, name what you feel, and make room for a small act of care.
Explore Self CareWalk in prepared, stay oriented to purpose, and leave with clarity on what happens next.
Explore Meeting CoachMake it easier to reach out, find the words, and take the next step.
Explore ContactHelp people navigate shared decisions with more clarity and confidence.
Explore PartnerQuestions leaders bring to the work
We begin with the people, decisions, and services in scope, listening across leadership and delivery, then identify a focused question we can investigate together.
We map what customers see alongside the employee work, policies, technology, and handoffs behind it, so the team can see where intent gets lost and which decisions matter next.
The people accountable for the direction and the people doing the work both need a voice. We bring their perspectives into the same conversation and make tradeoffs visible before they become delivery surprises.
We agree on the question and success measures first, then use research, a service view, and a clear narrative to give the team a shared basis for the next decisions.
We turn broad goals into usable and clear blueprints, prototypes, and working rhythms that teams can test, question, and refine, staying close enough to delivery to see where the approach needs to change.
AI can help us synthesize, explore, and support decisions, but we keep responsibility with people, who will have better agency to examine what the system makes easier or harder, and design for informed choice.
I work alongside the people who own the service, using critique and shared decision rules to build on their knowledge and leave them better equipped to carry the work forward.
We can begin with a focused discovery engagement, then shape an embedded phase around the work. Scope, cadence, and measures are agreed together rather than assumed in advance.
We choose measures that fit the mandate, looking at what people understand, what teams can decide and deliver, and what changes in the service over time.
Bring the customer or employee problem to solve, the people it affects, and the places progress feels stuck. We can use that conversation to see whether my practice is the right fit for your next step.
Tell me about the mandate and where it’s stuck.
We’ll explore what needs to change and whether I’m the right partner to help you move it forward.