Christopher Anthony                 

Email: alchemy.anthony11@gmail.com                 

Medway, MA 02053                                     Portfolio: https://www.designalchemy128.com/portfolio-2/

C: 954-593-0810                                             LnkIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alchemyanthony11/

Career Objective:
My career passion is leading design efforts/design orgs to create “Simple, Powerful & Must Have” products/services.

I am seeking roles that utilize my expertise in UX Product Design and Creative Brand/Marketing innovations. I have extensive experience in software product design. My background includes work with Cloud, SaaS, Mobile (all devices), Web, and Enterprise Systems. My greatest strengths are my analytical problem-solving skills and inherent user empathy, combined with a strategic focus on business objectives. Leveraging a deep understanding of modular and responsive design systems to enhance user engagement and satisfaction. Continuously maintaining and contributing to libraries in design tools (such as Figma, Sketch, and Axure) and documentation tools (such as Supernova, Storybook, Miro, and Confluence) to deliver components, patterns, and interaction models that support seamless user experiences.

As a Board Member for numerous startups, my advisory role is underpinned by a strategic vision to foster business growth for every team. We have successfully navigated the complexities of business development, transforming intricate design challenges into intuitive experiences that empower users and drive industry progress. I aim to continue contributing to and pioneering simple and indispensable product sets, across multiple scrum teams.

Software skills: Adobe Suite, Sketch, Figma, Canva, Invision, Jira, Axialis, Balsamiq, Axure, MSOffice 365, SAP systems, Monday, Morae/Ovo (UX testing), Visio/CAD, AI creative suite, Film Editing/Creative suites, Build - Vantive/Perforce,. CMS – (OpenText) RedDot/ Interwoven.

Relevant UX & Consulting Expertise:

Nimble and Adaptive at all business levels, ADA Designing for Accessibility (508/WCAG 2 AA), Extensive Adaptive/Responsive App/Website and Content Management System (CMS) design, which includes - Standardizing UI and IA, Localization of UXs, and Developing Style Guides/Libraries for full product ecosystems.

Education:
Northeastern University - Bachelor of Science in Art                                                                                BOSTON, MA
Concentration BS-Art - Triple degree in Graphic Design, Fine Art, and Film                           

Volunteer work:  Boston MMS, Museum of Fine Art tours for the blind. Speak to the Design community at NEU a few times a year and Mentor the Post-grad. Students through a few programs.

Employment:
AdvisoryCloud
Board Member - UX Consultant (Freelance)                       2024 to Present (Remote)                           7/1/24  - Present
Advisor and Board member to a slew of exciting startups!

 

Simplicify Studio, LLC.                                                                  Greater Boston, Ma          7/13-Present
UX and Product Design Mastercraftsman (founder)

(mid-2015 - Kicked off Simplicify studio, formally ‘Tap 2 Interactive, llc.’ Starting in 2013)

I am a world-class UX & Product designer and an ADA expert (design for everyone). I can be an arm of a client’s project team as a UX full-service designer (able to play many different UX roles, seamlessly transitioning between many projects). I love untangling complex design problems, mentoring and guiding teams in design systems best practices, and fostering a culture of design excellence and systems thinking with technical and non-technical partners.

TIAA (Through Accrue partners)                                                 Boston, MA                          5/18 – 12/23
Principal UX Consultant (leading Pension and Annuity work)

Principal UX Consultant at TIAA, through AccruePartners. Working across multiple teams to develop world-class (fintech) products for TIAA and its partners. Working across multiple agile teams to develop world-class (fintech) products for TIAA and its B2B partners. Helped design the latest visual and UX design systems for an enterprise of TIAA products.

  • Collaborated with teams to Discover, define, strategize, and implement enterprise design and mobile UX strategies.

  • Leading Product UX across OMNI channels, to develop innovative experiences, using modular and responsive design systems.

BlueCross BlueShield MA                                                              Greater Boston, Ma        1/17 - 12/2017
Principle UX Consultant (Acting Head of UX)    

For BCBSMA & Curate partners, developed a strong plan to innovate the BCBSMA stack. Creating a 21st-century Brand Ecosystem for B2B, B2C, and Medicare customers (OmniChannel & within 508/WGAC 2.0 ADA compliance).

  • Developed a set of molecular design tools, (starting at mobile-first) to make BCBSMA a 5-star trusted partner/advisor for All customers. Built a multi-level experience team, developing product design processes to fast-track migration and redesign of products, content, and visual voice.

Altisource                                                                                            Boston, Ma                         1/16 - 12/2016
UX Product Design Strategist (Principal - Contractor)

Led UX Design Strategy for AltiSource's Global Products across 30 brands. Focusing on advancing Market share, Continuous improvements of web & mobile properties, and being the 'voice of the customer' in product design strategy and planning across brands. Developed flexible UX Guidelines for each vertical, industry, and across our brands' products (digital devices and viewers).

 

Staples (Omni Retail and e-Commerce)                                  Framingham, Ma              2/14 - 8/2015
Director – Global Product Design (UX and Creative)

As Head of Worldwide product design, I’ve led the 'Staples Digital Re-Invention' into cutting-edge Digital and Mobile properties by building a world-class UX team (Process, lifecycle, asset management, and tools), into the third largest online e-retailer in the world. Revamped toolkit to lead with ‘Design for Everyone’ ADA advancements to metadata on assets, simple terms for global translation,n and smart use of color for faster browsing.

  • I developed my Global User Experience department to contain all UX talent pools, including Creative, User Research, Usability Testing, Taxonomists, and Information Architecture Design across 9 locations, I built a team from 5 to over 35 UX pros. 

  • My leadership included; Head Product Design, UX Design, and Global Creative Director, over all Staples digital brands (B2B (Contract - US, EU, and Canada), Staples.com/.ca/.eu, more than 20 mobile sites and apps, also the Quill Brand) - Totaling more 50 digital products, and 14 billion in annual sales revenue from eCommerce. 

Fidelity Investments                                                                       Boston, Ma                         5/2011 - 6/2013
Principle UX Architect   

Thought leader and evangelist for mobile product innovation of the Pro product line (Broker, Advisor, Wealth Management, and Power Self-Investor user groups).

  • Mobile design strategist and expert for Click-to-Tap translations of legacy products to mobile devices. Led a team of UX, Research, and Creative designers to develop Institutional Financial mobile products. My tactical and strategic playbook led with Mobile-first and ADA-focused product design.

Citrix Systems, Inc.                                                                          Ft. Lauderdale, FL            2/2003 - 2/2011
Global Product (UX) Design Director (Chief Product Designer)

Pioneered a Creative UX department as lead Creative. I was the Information Architecture expert for the Software suite of products (Cloud, VM, SaaS, and Admin.). Architecting cutting-edge and Intuitive new interaction models for a multitude of technologies.

  • My product suite focus included helping transform a disjointed set of products, to a multi-billion-dollar software bundle ($2.5+ bln) over 8 years of leadership. This effort resulted in more than 75 industry excellence and ‘Best of’ products, and cementing Citrix as a Platinum partner award 5 years in a row (2005-2011) for our Award-Winning Products. The suite was a combined product set of over 700 UIs across ALL systems, devices, and browsers. I was the Creative visionary for new design themes and innovative approaches to our software presentation.

  • I led Product Design Training to Increase cross-team, cross-product, and cross-division intelligence. Built UX-focused communication and UX alignments with more than 75 global development teams. Created a best-of-breed Iconic language to help globalize the software user experience. Developed a CMS solution to solve UI standards, Asset Management and Media Repository to catalog/maintain the more than 50,000 image files across 140 different product features.

  • Created a universal naming convention, and advanced search capabilities, while leveraging the world-class global iconic language. Developed consistent product visual architectures for Mac, Windows, Web, Linux, and Mobile devices (IPhone/IPad, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and WinMobile) – to allow intuitive sessions across platforms.

DIGITAS                                                                                                Boston, MA                        12/97 - 3/01
Principle UX Designer / ACD Creative

New Business (creative) Board member and Online Rebranding Team Co-leader, final products winning more than 30 Gold and Silver Web Design awards for my managed accounts (1998-2001). Led the Nba.com CMS redesign, Xerox partnership project, FedEx/NFL sweepstakes, and Bausch Lomb. Designed User Interface, Information Architecture, UX Models, content management strategies, technical specs writing for web technologies, content & competitive assessments and Information Design for Solutions with Global Factors.

  • Designed and Produced - llbean.com, gmc.com, Pontiac.com, GM Heavy Duty.

  • Pontiac, GMC, GM heavy duty (1999-2000) Primary design lead for GMC and Pontiac, created all new vehicle launch campaigns and landing pages. Created a standard Information Flow, style guides, and process - for all GM sites to follow.

  • Developed Custom illustrations for demo and motion graphic sections. Created the entire template system and UI philosophy for both sites. Developed a single UI philosophy, to ensure that browsing both sites would stay intuitive to Users (UI strategies stayed in place for multiple redesigns). Creative images are systematically refreshed but Information Architecture stayed solid for more than 10 yrs. Offline Print Art Director / Designer (Digitas/BSH) – DM Print Advertising (12/97 – 6/99) Won Many Print AD awards from 97-99 for print work done with Digitas (18 total).

    Additional Freelance and Contract roles;

  • Simplicify Studio, LLC                                                              Greater Boston – Global         2013-2020
    As founder and Managing leader - Worked on Product Design and User Research projects for; SoftNas, Osprey Software, Ascendle, Carbonite/Mozy, Altisource, and some smaller local clients, from 2013-2020.

  • Camaxx Design Group, Inc. (www.camaxx.com)            Boston/FTL                             1997 – 2004
    President (founder), Creative Director - Camaxx.com – As founder and managing leader, I lead our projects with creative direction and product design. We created branded solutions for clients through multi-channel media creative campaigns and created UI and Segmentation software wireframes for CMS systems, e-learning, and e-comm solution technology to implement development solutions. Created digital workflow plans for multi-tiered architectures and complex global web builds (managing budgets, scopes, timelines, resources, ADA, and localization).

  • MADTEK L.L.C.  Web technologies                                   Cary, NC                                  5/0 – 2/03
    Creative and UX CMS Architect - Madtek (2002) C.C.O. and UX Architecture for Madtek’s branded look and feel of the web technology products (CM systems (CMS), e-learning, and intranet workflow applications). Creative, UX, and UI Functionality expert developing award-winning SaaS Software flows for e-learning, CMS, intrane,t and TV/Kiosk products.

  • John Hancock Graphics Services                                      Boston, MA                           9/97-12/97
    Graphics Specialist - Received problem files PC and Mac to work in a cross-platform environment; created film, trapped using a Scitex system; stripped film and burning plates for printing; set up print jobs for Color Docutech; and upgraded software and drivers.

 

Some of my favorite projects and roles:

  • Layout design for Vogue magazine in 1995, Navy Nuclear/DoD Submarine tech. illustrations (DOD - Secret. 1996), and the redesign of the NBA.com site in 2000; This was one of the first adaptive/responsive sites on the internet using a custom CMS.

  • I also developed Amazon's first Web UI, from just books to all products (1999-2000 @DTAS).

  • One of my greatest challenges was multiple-branding projects and IA rework of the Citrix product suites across the enterprise (in 2003, 2007 and 2010), resulting in more than 50 product design awards. Additionally, developing a cutting-edge Iconic language (using 1500 visual metaphors), a world-class asset-management strategy, and custom asset tool deployment, Saving Citrix more than 20mln a year in resource costs.

  • At Staples, in 2014-15, I developed a touch-first UX strategy and rebranded the entire Staples eco-system including 20 mobile and 30 web products over 5 brands, 16 languages, and all mobile device platforms.

  • At BCBSMA we develop a UX & Product design solution to develop a true ecosystem for BCBSMA customers and partners. From 1000+ disjointed sites, into a dynamic & responsive design ecosystem leveraging the best 3rd party tools and an Acquia CMS starting with a Mobile 1st UX Design strategy.

Organizations and Awards: 

  • Society of Industry Leaders/S&P (’08-present) – speaker, consultant and expert in field of software, UX, virtualization and new technology trends – Often Published on UXMatters.com

  • Industry print and web awards (40+ various gold - bronze) for Design campaigns from 1996-2001

  • More than 70+ industry software design awards while at Citrix and Fidelity (XenApp, Password manager, Access gateway, and Wealth Central/Streetscape, plus others…) - 2003-2011, 2011-13

  • National Register of Who’s Who 2003-04 for Web Technologies

  • DOD – Secret Clearance, (Link-Palm) - 1990-91, 1996-2000

  • American Marketing Association – Board member 2004 – 2006 (Web Technologies Specialist)