◇ KELLY MEISSNER
I’m a commercial artist.
I work in tech.
For the last ten years that’s meant enterprise software, where the rules are regulatory and the person on the other side of the screen is often having a bad day. I design for that person, and make the system’s complexity my problem instead of theirs.
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Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
20
Years as an artist
10
Years in enterprise tech
5
Industries, health to banking
I draw to cut through ambiguity.
A sketch gets everyone seeing and talking about the same thing, which is usually the fastest way to find out we weren’t. It works at both ends. In the blue-sky phase it’s generative, drawing options before anyone’s attached to one. In scoping and specs it turns prescriptive,
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◇ WHAT I DO
An interdisciplinary practice
Design systems
I build and repair the systems other designers work from: tokens, component sets, and the notes on why they’re wired that way.
Planning and handoff I like the producer side: planning, scoping and specs. I size the work with the people who’ll build it, and route open questions by who owes the
UX strategy and research
I map how a system actually behaves, which is usually not how it’s described.
AI in the design workflow
I use generative tools to put several versions of an idea in front of people early — which also shows me where my own thinking is still fuzzy.
Illustration and pre-production
I draw the thing early. When people start describing different products to each other, a sequence of frames gets everyone seeing the same one.
◇ ILLUSTRATION
The art
Illustration, screen prints, apparel, paintings, sketchbooks, and AI image series. Six collections, each with an essay about how it was made.
◇ GET IN TOUCH
Let’s talk.
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Happy to talk shop with anyone doing this work: critique, war stories, or how you got a room to agree on something.