Emil Smith

I'm a senior design leader passionate about creating products that genuinely solve real problems for users. Over fifteen years, I've delivered projects for brands like Google, eBay, Sony, Nokia, Virgin, and Tinder, combining deep user understanding with technical expertise to build solutions that work beautifully at scale.

My approach focuses on making things work as well as they can for users, while creating systems that scale and evolve over time. I lead both creative and technical decisions, with expertise spanning design systems, user research, front-end development, and team leadership.

Experience

Newsquest | Head of Digital Design

March 2021 - Present

Promoted from Lead Product Designer to Head of Digital Design (2022)

Grew and led design team from 1 to 5 designers with 100% retention
Built and managed a family of design systems across 200+ local news brands
Led product design for a multimillion-pound digital tribute platform integrating online memorials with print obituary booking system
Led user research projects that informed product strategy and development priorities
Implemented new processes for communication and collaboration between design and development teams, improving productivity
Established design operations, tooling, and workflows that enabled efficient scaling across multiple product areas

NewsNow | Creative Tech Lead

Feb 2019 - Feb 2021

Led the product's largest redesign in its 24-year history, reporting directly to CEO and COO
Conducted the company's first user research initiative in 25 years, directly informing product decisions and strategy
Built design systems and front-end implementation using Vue.js, working within the development team on tooling and infrastructure
Led both design and engineering decisions on the core product, backed by quantitative and qualitative data, user research, and competitor analysis
Managed design team while contributing hands-on development work

BPL Marketing | Designer & Developer

Jul 2015 - Feb 2019

Developed design systems for core clients, reinforcing client relationships and strengthening their digital products
Founded BPL Web, the agency's first in-house web development team
Defined and informed devOps, designOps, and project management processes
Managed and mentored junior designers on web projects for clients including Three and Tinder

Twotwentyseven | Designer & Developer

Jun 2013 - Jul 2015

Worked in a small, fast-paced team on web design, front-end development, and bespoke Shopify eCommerce sites
Delivered projects for clients including Ella's Kitchen, Brothers Cider, Tonkotsu Ramen, and Salt Yard
Contributed to company coding standards and best practices

Amobee | Digital Designer

Jul 2012 - Jul 2013

Designed mobile display ads and rich media for global campaigns for clients including Nokia, Sony, eBay, Expedia, and Angry Birds
Created responsive designs and custom mobile websites for international brands
Automated repetitive design tasks using scripts, saving hundreds of work hours and improving team efficiency

Education

UAL, London | Digital Media Design BA(Hons)

2009 – 2012

Skills

Design Leadership: Team management, design systems, user research, design operations, stakeholder management

Design Tools: Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, InVision Studio, prototyping tools

Technical Skills: UI/UX Design, Front-End Web Development, HTML5, CSS3, SCSS, JavaScript (ES6+), Vue.js (SSR, VueX), React, Git, Python

Specialties: Systems thinking, design-development collaboration, user-centered design process, scaling design across multiple products

Interests & Values

I'm passionate about using design and technology for social good. Outside of work, I'm a musician and visual artist, and I volunteer at a youth charity where I run a community music studio. I also enjoy building audio gear, electrical engineering, and 3D printing.