Experience highlights
Product design for banks, for a crypto platform used by millions, and for global enterprises — all of it in production, all of it still running. Each story here tells one engagement straight: what I owned, the call that mattered, and what it taught me.
- For
- Voidweb
- Role
- Product Designer
- Scope
- Ongoing · Enterprise platform
At the forefront of AI
The design work here is mostly rules: patterns that still hold when the system is far too large for anyone to keep in their head, decided with people spread across the world and several time zones. A good deal of it is AI tooling I build myself — plugins, prototypes, whatever removes a week of dragging rectangles — so design moves at the pace engineering does.
- 01OwnedSystems, patterns and the rules that govern them, plus the tooling and working prototypes around them.
- 02ChallengeThe product itself — enormous and genuinely complicated, with a great many moving parts that all have to keep agreeing.
- 03DecisionTreat AI as tooling to build with now, not a feature to wait for. Most of my workflow is rebuilt around it.
- 04LearnedAt this size a working prototype settles an argument that no amount of presenting ever will.
- Role
- Product Designer
- Scope
- 2 years · 7+ products
Every product had to feel like one
Millions of people, real money, and numbers that have to mean exactly one thing. The design system the whole platform runs on was mine to shape, and I was directly responsible for seven-plus products built from it — including some of the most profitable ones.
- 01OwnedThe design system — components, motion, dark mode — design on seven-plus products, and the day-to-day line between design and development.
- 02ChallengeUnderstanding the financial instruments down to their maths and their data structures before designing anything on top.
- 03DecisionInvest in the system first, so a correct interface stops depending on a designer reviewing every screen.
- 04ImpactOne recognisable product across every team, at a scale measured in millions of users.
Ivo's ability to dive deep into every detail, combined with his strong technical knowledge, makes him stand out as a professional. Working with him is not only a pleasure but also a valuable experience that benefits any team or project he is involved in.
- Role
- Web Designer
- Scope
- Via StudioX · Public site + OTP Leasing
Designing the front door of a bank
A bank's public site is where people arrive worried, and every wrong turn becomes a call to a support line that is already full. I designed the product pages, the campaigns and the home page, and structured the site so business customers had a route through it as well as individuals — then did the same again for OTP Leasing.
- 01OwnedProduct and campaign pages, headers, the home page and the information architecture — across two of the bank's sites.
- 02ChallengeThe products themselves. Nothing could be designed until I understood how it worked end to end and what a customer expects to see.
- 03DecisionSit with the product managers first and the marketers second. Figma came last.
- 04LearnedHow to make a decision easy: tiers, comparisons, and the one number a person is actually shopping on.
- Role
- Motion Designer
- Scope
- Via StudioX · 13+ ATM screens
The guidelines had nothing that moved
An ATM has no hover, no scroll and no second chance to explain. The bank's guidelines had nothing in them that moved, so before animating anything we had to establish the vocabulary — what the shapes are, how they arrive, how long one is allowed to hold the screen — and keep it recognisably Postbank while doing it. Then thirteen-plus screen animations and a set of screensavers that show what the machine can do before anyone touches it, each built to crop cleanly across every size of screen in the estate.
- 01OwnedThe visual and motion vocabulary itself, then thirteen-plus screen animations and the idle screensavers.
- 02ChallengeBrand guidelines with nothing moving in them, and a fleet of different screen sizes every composition had to survive.
- 03DecisionDesign the system of movement first, so every later screen was an application of it rather than a fresh invention.
- 04LearnedMotion earns the most where an interface is least forgiving — not on a marketing site.
- For
- eDynamix
- Role
- Design systems consultant
- Scope
- 6 months · Consulting
Teaching a team to run its own design system
They arrived with a straightforward request: teach us design systems and Figma. The part that actually mattered was the one nobody ships in a component library — the rules. A system is not a set of components; it is the patterns, the naming and the conventions that decide whether four people build the same screen the same way, and it governs the experience long after anyone remembers who drew the button. So we sorted out their files, then the process between design, development and management, and then they stopped needing me.
- 01OwnedThe advice and the teaching: how to structure the system, their Figma practice, their files, and the process between design, development and management.
- 02ChallengeAdoption, always. A design system is a social artefact before it is a technical one.
- 03DecisionOptimise for whoever joins in six months, not for the presentation at the end of the engagement.
- 04LearnedA system that needs its author present is not a system yet.
Ivo is a pleasure to work with, he helped us with valuable advice in organizing our design system. Very well organized and creative.
- For
- Softadev
- Role
- Product Designer
- Scope
- 4 years · 6 projects
A utility-first CSS library, before that was a thing
Mostly product design, mostly on systems, for the best developers I have worked with — which is how I ended up writing a fair amount of the frontend too. We built the internal libraries and the practices around them, including one made of single-property utility classes: you configure the design system up front, it stays in step with the Figma file, and a new project is moving on day one. Tailwind turned up later on the same idea, which was equal parts flattering and annoying.
- 01OwnedProduct design across six projects, the systems behind them, and a real share of the frontend they were built in.
- 02ChallengeDesigning and building in the same week, without the design quietly becoming whatever was easiest to code.
- 03DecisionPut the design system in the CSS itself — single-property utilities, configured once, synced with Figma.
- 04LearnedWorking this close to engineering is the fastest cure for designing things that cannot be built.
Ivo is a UX wizard! We worked together on several SaaS projects, and he always delivered stunning and intuitive designs.
- For
- StudioX
- Role
- Designer
- Scope
- 2 years · 20+ projects
The years that set the bar
Two years, a great many projects, and a studio that kept winning web awards. A1, Vivacom, DSK Bank, Postbank, BNP Paribas, Fibank, Centio, Jump, the National Culture Fund, Sofia Record Factory, Emerald Travel, Doris — telecoms, banks and cultural institutions, one after the next. What stuck was not a technique. It was the standard: the assumption that the last ten percent is the job, not the part you get to when the schedule allows.
- 01OwnedIdentity, interface and interaction work across twenty-plus client projects.
- 02ChallengeA new industry every few weeks, each with its own vocabulary and its own idea of what good looks like.
- 03LearnedSpeed and craft are not opposites. Craft is what is left when there is no time to start over.
Ivo combines exceptional UX/UI expertise with a creative approach, backed by perseverance, dedication, and outstanding communication skills. Working with him is both productive and enjoyable, making him a key contributor to any successful project.
