My name is Aris Acoba
I've been a product, and web designer for a combination of 9 years.
I am currently working at GitHub as a product designer, helping build the tools for people who like building software.

I was previously the Head of Design at LawAdvisor. Before the pandemic hit, I was fortunate to be sent to London, Melbourne, and Brisbane for client collaborations. During my tenure, I have worked on legal project management, digital contracts, resourcing solution, tender management, and its core SaaS product.

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Early in my career, I started as a software engineer developing financial systems. On the side, I did designs, and developments on various landing pages, and CMS sites. Some of my work exposed me to learn new languages and frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Elixir, and ReactJS. I see this as my advantage in designing feasible solutions and communicating ideas to engineers. I have since focused on design. I have held positions in various industries such as banking, advertising, and startups.

Here are some of the companies and brands I have worked with: Lonely Planet, Simmons & Simmons, OP Games, Toyota Philippines, Mashup Garage, Eastwest Banking Corporation, PAREF Southridge School, IdeasXMachina, and Lorenzana Food Corp.

Feel free to send me a message.

Skillset

Main craft

Product thinking
Interaction design
Visual design
Prototyping
Design process

Soft skills

Listening
Self-awareness
Communication

Superpower ^{lvl 9999}

Doesn’t put Lorem Ipsum
WCAG contrast ratio nitpick
8pt grid evangelist
Can work with code, can learn on own (RoR, Elixir, React)

Tools

Design & Feedback

Figma
Principle
Framer
Pastel

Management

Jira
Linear
Asana / Favro
Todoist

Development

CSS / SCSS
Pug / Haml
VanillaJS / React / GatsbyJS
11ty
Metalsmith
Git/Vim
RoR ^Beginner
Elixir ^Beginner

Experience

Working on GitHub Actions, deployments, GitHub-hosted runners, GitHub Enterprise, GitHub Packages, GitHub Marketplace, npm, and securing the open-source supply chain, while incorporating accessibility best practices.

Sometimes, I push code to github.com's production 👀

I have worked with LawAdvisor for more than 2 years before the company took me on board as its official employee. Throughout my work with LawAdvisor, I've been fortunate to be sent to London, Melbourne, and Brisbane for close-client collaborations.

In my official tenure, I took on as a sole designer, where I have grown the design team from 1 to 5. I have led various projects such as legal project management, contracts management system, resource allocation system, and the core SaaS product; facilitating end-to-end product lifecycles.

Aside from the overall management of the design team, my responsibilities include, but are not limited to: building the design library structure, being one of the key presenters in executive meetings, owning and communicating design visions and decisions of the company, and introducing design tools to help the team work better; all-together while supporting team’s culture, growth, and collaboration among other departments.

Mashup Garage is the company where I got to hone my design and development abilities. Most of my tenure was focused to work with LawAdvisor as we were outsourced by them. I got to work with various products such as legaltech, fintech, and internal apps. As we grew the design team, I conducted interviews for new designers, facilitated internal workshops like CSS Blitz, Design Dekonstruction, and helped pioneer Design Huddles.

I also took it as an initiative to learn new development skills on the side such as React, GatsbyJS, Ruby on Rails, and Elixir.

On the side, I took projects on design and development. I've done a number of marketing sites, sometimes with CMS. I take this opportunity to learn new things as well while getting paid 👀 (e.g. learning Ruby on Rails, and applying it). This took on for 5 years.

I was invited by the CEO himself to join this award-winning advertising agency. I got to work with companies like Toyota Motor Philipppines, Philippine National Bank, and UPMG. I took over as the only digital creative in the company; developing a donation platform, designing an all-new SUV microsite, and various microsites used for company pitches.

I joined a bootcamp program that got me promoted as a junior officer after 1 year. Majority of my obligations during my stay involved the bank’s Request for Payment system. I was also involved in writing highly sensitive database queries and web services. Java and SQL were my primary tools here.

Playground

I take doing other things aside from my day-to-day a big part of my creative process. I’ve learned to accept that burnout can happen no matter what is your level of experience, and diversifying what you’re working on can help in keeping work fatigue at bay.

Here are some samples from my experiments, random ideas, and trying out different things for self-education, and sometimes for fun.

Codepen

Despite focusing on design, I enjoy playing CSS and making things that I randomly think (e.g. Aeropress from checkbox). I achieve a different level of satisfaction whenever I get to develop the designs I made; some of the shots here are even written without an initial design. I hope you get delighted as much I enjoyed making these.