Crit

Your design doesn’t feel quite right — it’s good, but not great. You know something is off, but you don't know where or why. You just want someone to tell you what needs a nudge.

I can help.

Who do you think you are?

Hey! I'm Brian, I'm a product designer at GitHub, startup founder, and side-project tinkerer. You can learn more about me here, or poke around the other pages on this site to get a feel for my work.

What is this?

I'm going to spend two hours doing the most thorough, over-the-top visual nitpicking you've ever seen. Show me your product, app, or website, and I'll point out in excruciating detail every pixel that I think could be better placed. I’ll point out the small-but-subtle ways alignment, color, and typographic choices are holding your design back from visual excellence. It'll be a blast!

Why do I need this?

Fair question! Sometimes people think of high quality visual design as "polish work" or a "nice to have stretch goal." But I believe that all software should be beautiful, and that form and function both play an important role in a product's success.

A visual design critique will be most useful when:

• Your product is about to ship, and you need a last minute gut check to make things look perfect.
• Your product has grown weeds, and isn’t quite as consistent or shiny as it used to be. You need someone to point out where to start fixing things, and how to have the most impact with the least amount of effort.
• You want to understand why your designs look good in Figma, but aren't translating well into production code.

How much does it cost?

$1,000 for two hours of critique. This time can be split up as needed, or worked all at once. We can do things asynchronously or real-time on a video call.

That’s expensive!

So is bad design!

I know that this price might not be realistic for many folks out there, or might not feel like it's paying for "enough." But my two hours with your interfaces will be highly productive, actionable, and easy to build against — more than a decade of design experience concentrated into two hours of value.

Only visual design?

It takes a long time for a designer to ramp up in a new business, industry, and problem space. For that kind of long-term commitment, it’s probably better to hire a contractor or full-time designer. But visual design critique can be done without as much context, meaning I can get in and get the work done quickly and efficiently.

• I won’t make up new features, remove features, or make consequential changes to your layout. If you think I'm your target customer, I will be happy to share more nuanced product feedback.
• I won’t propose logo, brand, or other costly thematic changes (like color schemes and typefaces). I might gently recommend small changes in these areas, but your brand is your brand. For this reason, your money will be best spent on in-product interfaces, not landing pages.
• I won’t implement any changes in code — I’m happy to pair with a frontend engineer of your choice to work through specific details if needed.

What’s the deliverable?

At the end of the two hours, I’ll send you notes of my findings with well-annotated screenshots and a Figma file full of high-fidelity recreations of your interfaces...but better!

What do you need from me?

Send me a list of views, pages, or flows that need the most attention. If it's more helpful for me to see a realistic interface that your users will experience, you can create a test account with pre-populated data that I'll work against. For anything more specific, we can always hop on a call to make sure I understand your goals and situation.

What if your work sucks?

A reasonable question, wise of you to ask. How about this: I guarantee that we'll find a meaningful way to improve the visual quality of your interfaces within two hours, or I'll send your money back without a fuss.

When can you start?

Click the blue button below, send over the cheddar, and I'll email you within 24 hours to get the process started. You should expect all the deliverables within a week or two, but keep in mind I'm only human!