Rubric: Transforming Ideas into Impactful Designs
Company: Rubric Role: Co-founder, Principal Dates: November 2014 → June 2021
Background
Studio Rubric was a design studio I co-founded with Sam Trapkin and Justin Gilman, whom I met as design students at MICA. We specialized in product design, UX/UI, web design, and branding. Our diverse experiences in graphic and interactive design, gained through work with various agencies, institutions, and technology companies, laid the foundation for establishing Rubric. Our goal was to bring our unique backgrounds together to build a studio around.
Our business had two primary focuses. The first was our collaboration with Squarespace, where we engaged in fun and commercial brand and interactive design work. This special partnership enabled us to design and build custom websites for high-profile clients such as Marc Maron, the New York Knicks, and Paul Scheer. These projects allowed us to showcase our ability to deliver tailored, high-quality websites that enhanced the online presence of our clients.
The second focus was providing product, UX/UI, and brand design work for highly specialized start-up companies. We functioned as an outsourced product/brand design team for companies like Fusionetics, Amplified, and Heggerty, helping them get their ideas off the ground.
My role at Rubric encompassed managing designers, developers, finances, our studio space in Los Angeles, marketing, design, and art direction. Emphasizing client collaboration, innovative solutions, and effective stakeholder communication was crucial to our success.
The transition to Vanilla allowed us to continue pushing the boundaries of design in the FinTech space, building on the strong foundation we established at Rubric. Through our specialized projects, innovative approaches, and high-profile partnerships, we left a lasting legacy in the design industry. This evolution from Rubric to Vanilla highlighted our commitment to leveraging design to solve complex problems and create impactful solutions in new and challenging fields.
Key Projects
Fusionetics
We overhauled the user interface and user experience of Fusionetics’ desktop application and designed a mobile application. Fusionetics, used by professional sports teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB, aims to evaluate movement efficiency and injury risk while developing personalized treatment and training programs. Our collaboration led to significant improvements, including a 79% pain reduction among users, a 60% reduction in ACL tears, and performance increases between 40% to 400%. This project helped Fusionetics expand into new markets such as healthcare and employee health.
Amplified
Amplified is a software platform designed to simplify the complex world of patent searches and intellectual property (IP) research. We were tasked with creating a user-friendly interface that harnessed the power of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to streamline the patent search process. Our approach involved close collaboration with Amplified’s team to understand the specific needs and pain points of their users, leading to extensive research and testing. The result was a platform that significantly reduced the time and effort required for patent searches, allowing users to leverage AI-driven insights and NLP to navigate the intricate IP landscape more effectively. This not only enhanced user satisfaction but also positioned Amplified as a leading tool in the IP research market.
Living Balance Sheet Prototype
Working with Kei Yasui, we created an interactive estate plan report presentation for financial advisor Steve Lockshin. This project led to the establishment of Vanilla, a pioneering FinTech company dedicated to simplifying estate planning through design.
