Hi, I’m Keisha,
an experienced product Designer
now based in los angeles, ca.
Olympic Kerner | Pantone Perve | Consistency Cop.
Lover of 4-legged creatures, Stand-up Comedy,
Sunshine, Music Festivals and D.I.Y.
““You have to be interested.
If you’re not interested, you can’t be interesting.””
background
I hold a Bachelors Degree in Brand Communications, from Vega, School of Brand Leadership, where I majored in Graphic Design and a Masters degree in Digital Media Design for Learning from NYU Steinhardt, where I majored in Cognitive Science, UX design and Games for Learning.
In addition, I have 9 years of experience working with multi-disciplinary teams within advertising agencies, digital design studios and start-ups.
Today, I aim to combine both visual and user experience design with learning sciences to create digital products that have a positive impact on people and their communities.
My most recent experience includes:
Design Director for a startup developing Direct-to-Consumer brands in the category of health and wellness.
Designing a suite of games, simulations and applications at NYU's Create Lab, A Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Advanced Technologies in Education (CREATE)
Designing an adaptive dual-language learning platform using music, game play, smart products, and AR for a start-up entering the Chinese Market.
Creating an holistic brand design system for an all-in-one college financial success platform aimed at students, teachers and college advisors.
Teaching ‘Introduction to Design’ courses at NYU Steinhardt to masters and PhD students as an Adjunct Professor.
Before that I have worked on a wide portfolio of clients from different industries creating identity systems, packaging, print and digital campaigns, e-commerce platforms and digital and physical products.
You will see from my portfolio that with every project I take on, I always aim to make it: Beautiful, Meaningful & Useful.
Meaningful: Is there a strong concept and/or a good story?
Beautiful: Is the design beautifully crafted and executed in a way that brings the story to life?
Useful: Does the user/person’s experience simple, seamless, intuitive? Are they learning something or is this a tool that improves the quality of their daily lives? Does it work? I believe that UX and UI are symbiotic, no matter how beautiful the design, if it doesn’t work, it’s not ‘a great product’.
Working collaboratively with clear goals, strong research, good coffee, and a holistic approach to design thinking is vital to my process, if you share the same sentiments, we should talk.
Note: I have signed a number of NDA's which forbid me to put recent work into public domain but am happy to discuss the nature of the work and details about my role in person.
CLIENTS:
New York University
Langone Child Study Center
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
Red Bull
World Design Capital
Woolworths SA
Lego
Nike
Sanlam
MTN
+ many more
INDUSTRIES:
Finance and Fintech products
Mobile Networks (MTN)
Retail (Branded content + E-commerce for fashion, decor, adults, kids and pets)
Food and Beverage
Gaming and Edtech and Educational content
Design
Fashion
Direct-to-Consumer products and services
Healthcare
+ many more
REFERENCES:
Kat Adams
P.h.D in Neuroscience in Education at NYU
"Keisha led graphic and UI design for a preschool educational assessment used by researchers at NYU. Keisha went above and beyond expectations in both professionalism and creativity. Truly, she exceeded all other designers we've worked with. She has an intuition for UI that preemptively solved issues we would have faced had we deployed the app with our original design. She was thoughtful, responsive, and delivered graphics that were beautiful and fun. I was impressed that Keisha holds her products and professional interactions to the highest standards. She did not hesitate to revisit completed graphics when we had extra time to make small detailed changes to the design, which in sum made the app that much more cohesive and a joy to use. She is self-motivated to deliver the highest quality product. She attended meetings with back-end developers working on the app and was able to work seamlessly in a team setting. Finally, Keisha herself is a joy to be around. It makes all the difference when under pressure to meet a deadlines. I can't recommend her highly enough."
Professor Jan Plass Director of DMDL Program at Steinhardt NYU and Director of CREATE Lab NYU.
"Keisha Milsom is one of the most talented UI/UX and graphics designers, and most committed professionals I had the pleasure to work with in my 20+ year career.
I hired Keisha in 2015 as senior Art Director for the CREATE lab I direct. CREATE specializes in the design of digital media for learning and in research on the effectiveness of specific design features. Keisha was supremely qualified for this position as she was also working on her Master's degree in Digital Media Design for Learning (DMDL), one of the programs I direct at New York University. This program equipped her with knowledge of cognitive science, the learning science, UI/UX design, project management, and design research.
During her tenure at CREATE, Keisha worked on several key projects, including Smart Suite, three games designed to train cognitive skills (brain training) funded by the US Department of Education, PlantTracer, an app and a website to conduct plant biology experiments, funded by the National Science Foundation, CBT Games, three games for cognitive-behavioral therapy for children, funded by the NYU Langone Child Study Center, StatsSims and MacroSims, two suites totaling 30+ simulations covering intro to statistics and intro to macroeconomics, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.
In each of these projects, Keisha had to work with different clients and learning designers, and she showed her remarkable ability to work in teams, understand the needs of the client as well as of the developers, and inspire new ideas along the way. Every single client commented on the extremely high quality of her work, and her artistic vision, attention to detail, and ability to quickly turn feedback into new designs, by far exceeded my expectations.
I should add that Keisha is a pleasure to work with: she is fun, animated, and exuberates a positive attitude that is infectious.
I highly recommend Keisha as senior Product Designer, UI/UX Designer or Art Director. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any additional information."