Contact-
www.linkedin.com/in/jamalnichols
(LinkedIn)
www.jamalnichols.com (Company)
Top Skills
Interaction Design
User Experience
Usability
Languages
German (Native or Bilingual)
Certifications
Instructional Design Essentials:
Models of ID
Foundations of Logo Design
LogoLounge: Shapes and Symbols
in Logo Design
Jamal Nichols
Principal at Truth About Design
San Francisco, California
Summary
German-American Design leader, mentor, and champion. The
unique perspective I bring to your business is based on my unique
background: because I'm a mix of very disparate cultures, I connect
subjects that other designers aren't able to connect as easily. This
leads to seeing opportunities that would stay undiscovered if you
worked with someone who does not have this perspective.
I graduated with a Master's Degree in Media Systems Design.
Over the last decade, I've been applying human centered design
principles to ever larger projects. I've worked in all aspects of the
design process at some point: frontend dev, engineering, visual
design, prototyping/interaction/UX, product.
Experience
Truth About Design
Principal
June 2018 - Present
San Francisco Bay Area
Candid truths and guidance for the design industry. We provide online training
and 1-on-1 coaching for aspiring UI/UX designers and motivated individuals
who want to grow their UI/UX design skills, advance their careers and increase
their earning potential.
I'm going to add more detail here later. But to summarize, I am doing almost
everything on this project:
- Set up technical infrastructure for eCommerce, E-Learning, vendor
management, blogging platform, video platform and affiliate program.
- Hired and managed a team of video editors and social media managers to
help out, because I quickly realized that I can't do this all on my own
- Filmed classes using professional-grade equipment for lighting and audio.
- Writing 5000 words per week (5 good blog posts)
Page 1 of 4
- Creating graphic design image posts for Instagram and Pinterest
- Managing social media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest,
Instagram
- Designed the logo.
- Chose typography and color scheme.
- Defined the interaction design.
- Wrote 1000 lines of custom CSS to get everything to look right
Equinix
Principal Product Designer
March 2017 - August 2018 (1 year 6 months)
Redwood City
I helped spearhead the creation of a design practice from scratch at Equinix:
- Coordinating with recruiters to interview candidates, doing screening calls,
leading in-person interviews
- Mentoring junior designers
- Defining product strategy
- Conducting user research
- Socializing design and educating stakeholders on the importance of design
- Keeping the holistic design vision on course across all touchpoints and all
new initiatives
- Making the design process as efficient as possible by finding and choosing
the right tools for our team
- And of course creating wireframes, visuals, user journeys, etc
CreativeLive
Design Educator
February 2017 - July 2017 (6 months)
San Francisco Bay Area
Taught online classes in UX Design in front of a live audience of 2000 people
General Assembly
UX Design Immersive Instructor
April 2016 - April 2017 (1 year 1 month)
San Francisco Bay Area
- Taught the 10-week, full-time UX Design Immersive to over 100 students
- The top 25% of students all got jobs within 4 weeks at great companies
- Taught 2-hour lectures, mentored during 1:1 time, gave design feedback on a
regular basis, gave career advice & resources
- Got very high NPS ratings
Page 2 of 4
Google
Product Designer (Contract)
July 2015 - April 2016 (10 months)
Mountain View
- Used IA & user flows to give the team clarity on all user journeys across the
product
- Ran design sprints to make fast progress and get consensus from key
people
- Redesigned notifications, first minor, then major, overwhelmingly positive
reception
- Did some motion design to get the point across in meetings
Wells Fargo
Senior Interaction Designer (Contract)
November 2014 - June 2015 (8 months)
- Redesigned parts of the desktop & mobile site according to their brand
standards
- Led meetings with stakeholders in Charlotte, NC to get consensus on content
strategy & design direction
Walmart eCommerce
Product Design Lead (Contract)
February 2013 - September 2014 (1 year 8 months)
- Led product design on Classrooms by Walmart, a direct competitor to
teacherlists.com.
- Led product design on Savings Catcher, Walmart’s biggest initiative of 2014
- Connected across multiple teams to get consensus and move things forward
- Led product design for an interactive nursery, where we worked together with
external companies and internal stakeholders to create a page where people
spent an average of 15 minutes
BMW Group
Interaction Designer (Contract)
June 2011 - December 2011 (7 months)
- Interaction & visual design for all search pages on the European redesign of
bmw.de.
- I was part of agency BBDO, so we had to run meetings with BMW’s
stakeholders and iterate on the feedback we got from them
Page 3 of 4
Education
Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences
Master's degree, Game and Interactive Media Design · (2004 - 2008)
Upload VR
Virtual Reality Development, Environment Design · (2017 - 2017)
Page 4 of 4
