Greater Chicago Area
I am a Principal Designer working on payments and checkout at PayPal, on the Merchant Enablement team. Over the past six months I have shipped 20+ merchant proposal packages on weekly sprint cycles for top global brands including Home Depot, Nintendo, Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, Chewy, and Microsoft. The work supports PayPal's priority of greater checkout prominence to grow TPV. I also build the tools behind the work. I made a browser brief form and a Figma plugin that assemble a per-merchant checkout flow, which cut assembly from 30 to 60 minutes to under 60 seconds. Before PayPal I spent 18 years at MTG Media Group, growing from Senior Art Director to VP and Creative Director. I led a 6-person team and built responsive web products and design systems for 7 B2B brands reaching 128,000 professionals. Plate, the site I rebuilt as a responsive product, won the 2017 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Website. Through Steven Design Services I take on select contract work in design systems, responsive web products, and product strategy. Open to Principal Designer or Senior Product Designer roles in payments, fintech, and B2B platforms. Chicago area or remote.
Contract via MagnitGlobal. Working on PayPal's Merchant Enablement Checkout team, designing checkout and payment experiences for the top 100 global merchants. • Shipped 20+ merchant proposal packages over six months on weekly sprint cycles for top 100 global brands including Home Depot, Nintendo, Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, Chewy, and Microsoft. Each package contains a screen audit, end-to-end checkout flows, working prototype, prototype video, Figma Slides deck, and PowerPoint deck. • Proposals are the primary artifact PMs use to win merchant commitments to make PayPal more prominent at checkout, the lever for growing TPV. • Designed a modular checkout flow library for PMs to use with merchants outside the top 100, covering grocery, retail, subscriptions, and restaurant verticals. Each flow models a representative merchant and builds the full pattern that scales to thousands of small and medium businesses. •Built a browser-based brief form and Figma plugin as a two-tool pipeline for merchant checkout flow builds, cutting per-merchant assembly time from 30 to 60 minutes to under 60 seconds across 17 supported payment flows.
Independent design practice. Brand identities, web design, packaging, and creative direction for clients across industries. Currently selectively available for contract product design work focused on design systems and responsive web products.
Promoted from Senior Art Director to VP and Creative Director over 18 years. Led a 6 person creative team producing 7 publication brands and 6 responsive web products serving 128,000+ B2B professionals. Web, editorial, and brand. • Plate (plateonline.com): Won 2017 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Website. Rebuilt as a responsive, mobile first product serving 42,000+ readers with 56,000+ monthly pageviews. 90% of subscribers reported the content shaped their purchasing decisions. • Project Blackbird (Plate): Built an interactive oral history product with a dozen video interviews, original photography, and illustrations. Grand Jesse H. Neal Award nominee, top 4 nationally. • Alt Meat: Launched a brand, magazine, and website from zero in under 8 weeks as the first major B2B publication in alternative protein. Grew to 22,000 registered users. • Meatingplace: Designed a modern responsive rebuild of MTG's highest-traffic daily news site, where 95% of readers reported taking action from content. The brand was acquired before the rebuild launched. • Built design systems and reusable design tokens for 7 properties, keeping visual and interaction patterns consistent across editorial, marketing, and sales.
Directed creative strategy for two major industry publications, earning multiple ASBPE awards for editorial design excellence in Control and Food Processing magazines. •Led creative direction for Control and Food Processing magazines, overseeing all visual content from concept to publication •Managed creative workflow for 5 monthly publications, establishing design standards and production processes •Developed interactive content for Food Processing Magazine's digital platform •Collaborated with editorial teams to create compelling visual narratives that enhanced reader engagement
Developed design foundations working on 6 industry publications including Beverage Magazine and Candy Industry, contributing to editorial layout design and learning collaborative publication workflows.