Michael Suen

Designer + Creative Director

Michael Suen

Designer + Creative Director
I make things
for
human beings

I'm Michael — and I'm interested in the future.

I run a design collective called Weirdo, where we work with early-stage teams to define their concept, validate their idea, and build future-facing brands and products that people want. I believe the best experiences blur the line between work and play. Users love using them, and I love making them.

Projects I've worked on have been featured in TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal and NPR, won awards at SXSW and Games for Change, and involved partners like the United Nations and the Gates Foundation. I've taught UX design at General Assembly and lectured on playful learning at MIT and Haverford College. In a former life, I worked on installations for museums and video games for schools.

Spawned in the tar pits of L.A., raised by capitalist wolves in Hong Kong, and educated on the icy planet of Hoth Vermont, I now scheme from outposts around the world. Hire me, if you dare.

Not just a pretty face.

"Michael is the best designer I’ve worked with. He has great taste, understands his audience, is a quick learner, enjoys making things look pretty, and can turn his ideas into reality through front-end code. Very few designers can do all of the above."

Jonathan Lau, CEO (SwitchUp)

Lots of designers can deliver eye candy — I know I can. But my clients don't trust me with their life's work because my buttons are beautiful. They understand that real, lasting success goes beyond a font or a color.

Successful design should stand for something. Successful design should make your users fall in love. And when it's really done its job, successful design should make a difference. That's the kind of design that gets results.

That's why I don't do quick fixes or cookie-cutter templates. Since 2011, I've focused on helping organizations that recognize the value of design and the clients who want to do it right. Let's imagine, design, build and ship an unforgettable experience that grows with you — and stays with your audience.

How I Get My Hands Dirty
  • Art & Design Direction
  • UI & UX Design
  • Responsive Web Design
  • Mobile App Design
  • Branding & Visual Identity
  • Front-End Development
  • Research & Digital Strategy
  • Game Design & Gamification
  • Content & Email Marketing
  • Coaching & Teaching

Do you want to...

  • Launch a digital product or service that is bold, beautiful, and ready for business on day one?
  • Build a strong brand that wows your users, investors, and partners, so they immediately connect to your mission?
  • Introduce engaging onboarding experiences or interactive campaigns that drive behavior and generate real impact?

If so, you might be in the right place. To learn more about what I do, please get in touch. Let's make magic together. ✨

Michael helped transition our organisation from fledgling startup to award-winning studio. He’s technically savvy, able to plan, design and code a custom website against tight deadlines. He has a great eye for design and art direction, visioneering slick promo videos, wireframing user interfaces, and designing logos and other marketing assets. Michael is both a big and quick thinker who also gets things done.

Peter Stidwill, Exec. Producer (Zoombinis & Quandary)

I do what I love & I love what I do.

Selected Work

VocaliD is an award-winning startup building the world's first personalized digital voices. As Director of Product Design, I led design and front-end development of their marketing website, sales pages, payment flows, user dashboards, and a web application for "voice donation" that now boasts over 20,000 contributors and 6 million sentences.

Looking Glass Factory is an innovative hardware startup bringing living pieces of digital space into the real world with volumetric displays, but their e-commerce website looked decades old. I redesigned their online presence by introducing a modern, responsive design system that doubled down on the brand's nostalgic connection to an older, more optimistic computing era.

21st Century Learning is a global educational consultancy that helps top international schools integrate educational technology into their classrooms. I designed and built a handsome Wordpress website that allowed 21CL to highlight its services and centralize the management of its popular professional development programs for over 5,000 educators in one place.

Learning Games Network is a non-profit educational game studio spun out from MIT. I designed brand identities, marketing websites, and related assets across the organization, including its various game properties and educational initiatives, from the ground up. I also created and tested rapid and functional prototypes for the online language learning game, Xenos. In 2013, our ethics game Quandary was named Game of the Year by the Games For Change Festival.

Michael is a sharp and creative professional, whose skills go beyond his years. Hired to develop a creative and strong communications and outreach voice, he did that and more. A talented web developer, copywriter, & marketer, Michael is an incredible asset for any team to have.

Jennifer Groff, Researcher (MIT Media Lab)

Let's buildsomething together.

P.S. If WEIRDO isn't a good fit for you right now, that's okay! You can always read my monthly articles, where I write about the future, creating for yourself, and my best processes for work and play. Plus, millenials love it. Subscribe for free here.

Now Reading

Badass: Making Users Awesome, by Kathy Sierra

Now Listening

GUNSHIP, by GUNSHIP

Now Viewing

BoJack Horseman (Season 3), created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

Now Playing

80 Days, by inkle

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© Copyright 2014-2017 Michael Suen

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