Patrick McKowen

Patrick McKowen

Product Designer in Oakland, CA

About

I’m a hands-on design generalist who can lead a project from discovery to delivery. I have strong business acumen, love solving ambiguous problems, and have an insatiable curiosity about people and technology.

Work Experience

2021 — 2023
Senior Product Designer at Cameo

I led design on Cameo's first B2B product (Cameo for Business). I co-created the zero-to-one product strategy, helped run research, and designed the end-to-end experience for both businesses and creators.

I also led the Cameo Design System team. I maintained the backlog, defined the first set of Design Tokens, crafted system components, and helped our designers get the most out of Figma.

2016 — 2020
Director of Product Design at JDRF
NYC

This was a player-coach role. I was the hands-on design lead on projects, while managing a group of product designers, product managers, and a front-end developer.

  • Led the redesign of JDRF Fundraising creator tools, resulting in a 6% increase in revenue.

  • Led the redesign of a global navigation and search system spanning all products, resulting in an 88% improvement in usability scores.

  • Led the creation of the JDRF Design System.

  • Established the first product management team.

2014 — 2016
Product Design Manager at JDRF
  • Coached 5 other designers to improve craft, system thinking, and x-functional collaboration.

  • Led the redesign of the marketing website, content management system, and donation forms resulting in 30% increase in donations.

2012 — 2014
Senior Product Designer at JDRF
  • Led the redesign of the community forum and groups resulting in a 59% increase in MAU.
2010 — 2012
Design & Development at Freelance
San Francisco

I got my start doing brand and web design for small businesses in travel, health, media, law and finance.

Side Projects

2021
Learning to code

I had fun learning SwiftUI and creating an app to make meditation a daily habit.