Why hello! I’m Amanda Ruck. I’m a digital product designer (former industrial designer) and art director, with expertise creating branded experiences and design systems. ☁︎

With over 10 years of experience, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a wide range of clients, including Store No. 8 (Walmart’s innovation incubator), Meow Wolf, Zonda, Adobe, American Bird Conservancy, Target, FedEx, UHG, and more.

I thrive on projects that require a strategic lens as well as hands-on digital craftsmanship. I believe that successful products strike a balance between establishing consistent visual patterns, while knowing when to break them. I aim to design systems that clearly embody brand character while laying a logical foundation for developers to build, designers to evolve, and users to seamlessly experience.

Off the screen, in the wild, I can be found sliding down mountains on two sticks ⛷, seeing live music 🪕, pointing out cool birds 🦆, and making handmade gifts for the people I love 🎨.

Expertise
Design Systems, UI/UX, Strategy, Product Design, Branding, Art Direction, Prototyping

Experience
Owen Jones ☞ Interactive Art Director
Council ☞ Principal Designer
Thesis ☞ Design Lead
Nelson Cash ☞ Senior Designer
Ziba ☞ Interaction Designer
Ziba ☞ Industrial Designer

Experience

Education 2010—2014

Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design (BSD),
Arizona State University

  • 2023—Present

    As Interactive Art Director, I collaborate with brand, UX, and tech teams to lead the UI design phase of project work. I seek to establish visual and interactive patterns to support the specific narrative we’re aiming to communicate experientially, while balancing the need to create an intuitive design system which can be seamlessly built and evolved upon.

  • 2021—2023

    As the lead individual contributor at Council, I work on a variety of projects including web and mobile product design, brand identities, logo creation, and design system development. Clients consist of early stage startups as well as established enterprise organizations, including Meow Wolf, Store No8 (Walmart incubator), the Washington Post, and Zonda.

  • 2020—2021

    At Thesis, I helped to grow and nurture a new internal UX team, shepherding best practices as we transitioned to Figma. I worked with Adobe on the creation of an internal design system tool for their web marketing presence, redesigned web experiences for Kaiser Permanente as their urgent care clinics expanded, and led the charge on a new agency site for Thesis.

  • 2019—2020

    At Nelson Cash, I worked on various web product and content marketing engagements for Indeed. I facilitated workshops to promote top-of-funnel lead generation, as well as nurturing new users through continuous onboarding.

  • 2017—2019

    As an Interaction Designer at Ziba, I worked closely with enterprise clients to aid in their transition to modern digital platforms. Through in-depth qualitative interviews and iterative user testing, we uncovered opportunities to streamline their services, and created interactive prototypes to convey and sell our ideas internally.

  • 2014—2018

    As an Industrial Designer at Ziba, I helped clients conceptualize futuristic product opportunities for a changing world and developed design guidelines to help clients better-embody their brand through their offerings. I worked for a range of clients and industries including CE, CPG, medical, and footwear.

  • 2013

    As a Design Intern, I created branding collateral for clients in the craft brewing and distilling industry, including hand lettered and hand illustrated packaging labels for new products now on the market.