Hi, I’m Mig Reyes. I lead product design, research, and writing at Duolingo.
As head of product experience at Duolingo, I look after the product design, research, and writing teams crafting the best education in the world and making it universally available. We are equal parts product thinkers and people of craft caring deeply about the details. I’m hiring senior designers and directors in Seattle, Pittsburgh, and New York City. We look for people who have designed and led exceptionally well-crafted mobile apps. I’m privileged to be a part of this wild, weird design team.
I was a former director of product design at Instagram. As head of design for Instagram’s Product Foundation organization, I supported several teams improving performance, notifications, design systems, and secondary interfaces including Instagram Lite and Instagram.com. We made Instagram fast, simple, inclusive, and well-crafted for over two billion people globally.
A former Director of Product Design at Sprout Social, I looked after several design teams building social media publishing, reporting, and analytics tools and the design systems team unifying Sprout Social’s design language. I navigated our teams through an aquisition, led the UI redesign of Sprout’s platform, doubled and diversified the design team, and saw the company through to IPO.
Before Sprout Social, I served as the head of the digital product design team at Trunk Club, a fashion service by Nordstrom. We spent our days redesigning the retail experience, positioning design as a strategic partner to the business. Teams collaborated with ours to improve the product experience and implement design processes to inform their work. Before Trunk Club, I briefly served as Director of Design for Tock, studying Michelin-starred service design under Nick Kokonas and The Alinea Group.
My leadership and product-thinking was shaped by my four years as a brand and product designer at Basecamp. I led marketing and product work for their project management software. I built new features, improved customer conversion and retention, embodied the Basecamp voice through marketing experiments and writing, all the way to new product prototyping.
My formative in-house role was with the crowdsourcing t-shirt brand Threadless as their first full-time interactive designer. I created marketing campaigns, defined brand standards, and explored new user interfaces.
While my formal training is in communications and graphic design, I can’t separate the many adjacent disciplines of design. I encourage designers to practice typesetting in the same breath as they practice writing code or prose. I push for trying illustration and studying animation principles. We may not master each craft, but having empathy for all makes for a better designer.
Supporting community
I care about the design industry becoming more diverse and inclusive while fostering the careers of fellow designers. In 2009, I invited influential creatives to share words of wisdom on Humble Pied. I founded the CreativeMornings Chicago chapter, bringing together the city for free monthly creative lectures. This inspired my work serving as President for AIGA Chicago, the oldest professional organization for design.
Teaching & mentorship
I’ve taught the fundamentals of design at The Chicago Portfolio School and The Starter League. In addition to workshops and student portfolio reviews, I’ve served as a mentor at Techstars and an advisor to Designation, a digital design intensive program acquired by WeWork. I couldn’t be any more stoked seeing people find success with a new career in design.
Speaking
I’ve been fortunate to travel around the country giving presentations on business, creativity, and culture. One of my favorite talks to give is the one I gave at CreativeMornings. It’s four pieces of fun, weird advice that encourages everyone to be makers. You can see where I’ve spoken here.
Interviews
Publications
Recognition
- Adobe
- AIGA
- CMYK Magazine
- Coudal
- CreativeMornings
- Garaje de Ideas
- Grain Edit
- HOW
- Inc.
- InVision
- ISO50
- Motionographer
- Product Design Weekly
- siteInspire
- Smashing Magazine
- The Society of Typographic Arts
- swissmiss
- UnderConsideration
What friends in design say
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Aaron Draplin Draplin Design Co.
Just let it be known: If anyone messes with Mig Reyes, they mess with the entire DDC enterprise.
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Jessica Hische Illustrator, Letterer
All I can say is never challenge Mig to a design duel. He will kick your ass and you will feel inferior for the rest of your life.
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Randy Hunt Former VP Design, Etsy
Unbounded curiosity, self-reflective, enthusiastic, that's the Mig I know and love!
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Tina Roth Eisenberg swissmiss
The world needs more creative humans like Mig Reyes. He is thoughtful, talented, hard-working and leads life with a generous, big heart!
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Jake Nickell Founder & CEO, Threadless
Mig humbly calls himself a designer but he's actually one of those few people that can probably figure out anything.
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Sean Donohue Former VP, Threadless
I only taught Mig 94% of what I know about design so I that I could always be 6% better.
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Jim Coudal Coudal Partners
Mig is constantly surprising me. Just when I think I have a handle on how he thinks, or where his style and taste comes from, or what he’s really good at, I realize I have it all wrong.
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Julie Ann Horvath Design Manager, Apple
I've had the pleasure of sharing everything from conference stages, Google Hangouts and tweet exchanges, to hugs and drinks with Mig Reyes. As far as truly talented designers go, Mig is one of the first people that comes to mind and I'd trust him as much to lead the creative direction of my product as I would to look after my firstborn child; and that's saying a hell of a lot.
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Timothy Goodman Illustrator, Designer
Mig is one of the smartest, talented, most punctual guys I know. Even when he's sippin' he's never slippin'. He's also a great ambassador for Chicago (I mean, the guy roots for the Bulls!?), so if you visit Chicago make sure to book your travel plans through him.
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Armin Vit UnderConsideration
Mig is so annoying. He is full of optimism. He means well. He helps others. He shares what he knows. He is funny. He is smart. He dresses well. He can code. He can design. He can write. And, like, he smiles all the time. Ugh. Can't stand the guy.
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Harper Reed PayPal
Mig Reyes is a designer who doesn't ask for permission before he executes. He once smoked weed in my startup's kitchen.
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Read all good vibes?
Get in touch
For speaking engagements, interviews, and more, you can email me at migreyes@duck.com.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of your Friday!
Hi, I’m Mig Reyes. I lead product design, research, and writing at Duolingo.
Duolingo is making the best education in the world and making it universally available. I previously led design at Instagram, Sprout Social, Trunk Club, 37signals, and Threadless. See my LinkedIn or read my longer bio.
We’re hiring senior designers and directors. We look for people who have designed and led simple consumer mobile apps. We emphasize the portfolio: strong product thinking with exceptional visual design. We value brevity, clarity and output over process. Less sticky notes, more high-fidelity prototypes. Go behind our scenes!