Product DesignAtlas
2025A ground-up redesign of a mobile banking app for people who have never trusted one.
Booking new work for Q4
Design that earns its keep.
I am Elena, a product designer & art director working independently from Lisbon, Portugal. I help founders and product teams turn complicated things into products people understand on the first try.
- Years designing
- 11
- Projects shipped
- 40+
- Countries worked in
- 6
AtlasTessellateNorthwindMarenPeripheryCadenceKestrelField & Co.
Selected work
All projectsFour projects worth explaining
A longer list exists. These are the ones where the thinking is easiest to show.
Product Design
Brand IdentityTessellate
2025A visual system for an architecture practice, generated from a single geometric constraint.
Product DesignNorthwind
2024A logistics analytics platform redesigned for operators who read it eight hours a day.
E-commerceMaren
2024Storefront and checkout for a slow-fashion label selling garments people research for weeks.
What I do
Three things, done properly
Most engagements are a mix of these. If your problem does not fit any of them, say so and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person.
01
Product design
End-to-end design for digital products, from the research that decides what to build through to the components engineering ships.
- Research and discovery
- Flows and prototypes
- Interface design
- Design systems
02
Brand identity
Visual systems built on a rule rather than a mood board, so they hold together long after the launch campaign is over.
- Positioning
- Marks and typography
- Guidelines
- Print production
03
Art direction
Direction for photography, editorial, and campaign work, including the parts nobody enjoys, like press checks and asset handover.
- Photography direction
- Editorial systems
- Campaign layouts
- Production oversight
About
Eleven years in, I have stopped believing that good design is the part you can see.
The work that has held up is the work where I spent longer understanding the problem than drawing the solution. That usually means talking to the people who use the thing, sitting with the support team, and being willing to throw out a direction in week four.
I work independently, one project at a time, mostly with founders and small product teams who need a designer to own the whole thing rather than decorate the end of it.
- Product design
- Design systems
- Brand identity
- Art direction
- Editorial
- Packaging
- Prototyping
- Accessibility
How it goes
No surprises, no theatre
The same four stages on every project, whether it runs six weeks or six months.
- 01
Understand
I talk to the people who use the thing and the people who support it. Most projects change shape in this first fortnight, and that is the point of it.
- 02
Frame
We agree on the specific problem worth solving and what success looks like in numbers. Nothing gets designed until that sentence is written down.
- 03
Make
Fast, rough, and in front of real people early. I would rather throw away three directions in week four than defend one in week ten.
- 04
Hand over
Documented, specified, and built to survive without me. If your team cannot extend the work six months later, I have not finished it.
In their words
What clients say afterwards
“Elena rewrote how we think about our own product. She arrived with questions rather than opinions, and the answers reshaped our roadmap for the year.”
Booking new work for Q4
Have something that needs thinking through?
Tell me what you are building and where it is stuck. I reply to everything within two working days, even when the answer is that I am not the right fit.