✌️ I’m Manuela.
I’m an intuition-driven bilingual Senior Product Designer with experience in B2B/enterprise design and a decade of experience working in business development at startups.
I also work as a design critique facilitator and mentor at Designlab, the award-winning online design program.
Scroll down to see my case studies ⬇
Adding an AI Feature into a Travel Booking App
Speculative/passion project for Robert Redmond’s AI for Product Design. An AI travel advisor to help you save money and make better vacation decisions.
Priori Legal: Updating a legacy editing pattern
Taking user feedback to update an editing modal.
Priori Legal: Designing a better table
Redesigning a complex, multi-level table.
Creating a progressive sex education app for teens
I was the sole designer at a stealth startup designing a progressive sex education app for teens. I conducted over 20 hours of user research with parents and teens to launch our MVP.
Outside work, I am a mentor at critique facilitator at Designlab, the award-wining online design program.
I am passionate about giving back to the community that has shaped me and helped me become the designer that I am today. That’s why I love mentoring.
Prior to becoming a designer, I have a decade of experience working in startups!
After I graduated college, I was inspired by the startup and technology industry. Facebook had recently went public and there was so much buzz around it. I was a natural generalist. I was resourceful and creative and I loved the energy around startups. I did mostly business development and partnerships. Why the transition to product design?
Because I was frustrated that I couldn’t solve my customers problems. I wanted the toolkit to do so.
Here are some companies I have worked for:
Oh yeah…and in between all of this, I was a small-business owner for two years. I had an organic skincare business called Manu Organics. I taught myself how to use Adobe Creative Suite and learned to make my own labels, social media posts, and marketing collateral.
In my free time…
More case studies below
Here’s what is keeping me interested right now:
🎾 - Playing tennis with my friends
🛼 - Back into rollerksating!
📀- Collecting salsa vinyls
🪡 - Focused on my embroidery side business
🤓 - Learning Facet.ai & Midjourney (generative AI)
