Summary

Early in my career I focused purely on digital design, but after a couple of years the front-end technologies caught my interest and I started writing templates and eventually transitioned into a combined role of designer and front-end developer, filling a gap between the product team and front-end developers.

Having a deep understanding of front-end practices makes my job designing the UI and defining the final front-end components a lot more efficient, and usually leads to a leaner design- and implementation lifecycle.

I strive for high quality, simplicity and take pride in what I do, whether it involves UX/UI design, HTML/CSS or spec'ing front-end requirements. I make an effort to influence and inspire colleagues and people around me. I am a team player by heart and love working with great minds who push me to perform my best, but I am also very comfortable making crucial decisions and executing projects autonomously.

I feel comfortable working directly with stakeholders, interviewing end-users or participating in a discovery/planning phase of a project.

Recent activity

1. Design System Contractor - Coloplast

   February 2022 → July 2023

   Primary responsibilities:

   • partake in defining the initial vision and setting direction for the project
   • identifying common UI components and elements across all Coloplast's sites
   • setting up the entire design system architecture in Figma and building all UI components in Figma
   • defining and setting up the design token system in Token Studio to sync design decisions with the front-end
   • defining and setting up principles and systems for color theming, typography, spacing, elevation etc.
   • documentation for components usage, technical specification and general design system onboarding
   • gathering feedback from UX/UI designers and stakeholders
   

   

   

2. Freelance Product Designer - Semler

   June 2020 → February 2022

   Primary responsibilities:

   • introduce Figma and implement a design system- and component-based approach into the existing design/development cycle
   • build design systems for 6 VAG car brands and Semler to ensure design consistency with existing projects and the brands corporate identities
   • all new UX/UI design projects across all brands

   Some of the projects I designed:

   • ŠKODA used cars
   • Private leasing sites for Audi, Volkswagen, SEAT, ŠKODA
   • Service- & repair plans for Audi, Volkswagen, SEAT, ŠKODA
   • Volkswagen GO site - re-designing the new long term rental pages
   • ŠKODA partner map V2 - rethinking the mobile experience and re-implementing the front-end
   • Volkswagen accessories - redesigning existing accessory page
   • ŠKODA finance calculator
   • SEAT Hola - long term rental
   • ŠKODA All Inclusive site
   • Porsche Taycan prebooking campaign
   • ŠKODA accessories - redesigning existing accessory page

3. Senior Product Designer - Connected Cars

   Jan 2021 → March 2020

   Connected Cars hired me to take ownership of everything design (except their mobile applications) and redesign their POC of a car workshop product, to a full-fledged production grade web application.

   I worked as the lead designer on the following projects:

   • planning and designing Connected Cars Workshop
   • planning and designing Connected Cars Fleet
   • identifying existing end-user workflows through interviews, and iterating over UI solutions with the end-users
   • coming up with an overall design style and vibe for Connected Cars visual identity
   • writing detailed technical hand-over specifications for the front-end developers to ensure consistency between the design prototypes and the final product
   • designing and implementing Connected Cars public website including illustrations (see frontpage for examples )
   • doing basic QA including bug-reporting for features before and after going live

4. Partner & investor - Windward project

   Jan 2020 → Now
   

   

   

   For big parts of 2021 I lived and worked on a tiny island called Mayreau in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with my friend and business partner Kamran, on an eco-resort project called Windward Project.

   In short (which is not possible), we have taken the first steps of creating a totally off-grid eco-resort using solar power, desalination for drinking water, eco-friendly custom-made prefab bungalows, community programs and a lot more!

Work-life balance

I am a firm believer in letting people choose to work where they are most efficient. Personally I prefer a mix of remote and on-site work, to find new inspiration from start-up vibe co-working offices, cafes etc.

For the past 10 years I have travelled extensively and had the privilege of living in multiple locations (e.g. Chiang Mai, San Francisco and St. Vincent), while working remotely for my Danish clients, learning valuable lessons about remote work, before it became mandatory for more or less everyone in 2020. I therefor feel super confident working from wherever I am, knowing I can keep my productivity and motivation high for long periods of time.

I am currently situated in my home hub, Copenhagen.

Besides being a huge design nerd, I'm also a training geek, thrill-seeker, dedicated kite-surfer, love reading and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

Clients

• Coloplast - Medical devices and services related to ostomy, urology, continence, and wound care
• Connected Cars - Connecting people to their vehicles
• Mindpool - the new way to listen, understand, and act on employee inputs about your business
• Audi Denmark
• Volkswagen Denmark
• ŠKODA Denmark
• SEAT Denmark
• Cupra Denmark
• Semler - Importer of Volkswagen AG cars in Denmark
• Vivino - Worlds largest online wine community and marketplace
• Servicelovers - Customer service connoisseurs
• Printix - Cloud-based print management software
• ATEA - IT infrastructure specialists
• Vertic - Digital agency
• Copenhagen Business School
• Beautiful People - International dating portal

Preferred toolbox

• Figma for early prototypes, all the way to the finished design system components. I used Sketch + Abstract before moving to Figma.
• Token Studio
• Affinity Designer - for larger and heavier vector work
• Github - big fan of Github as a collaboration platform for efficient development iterations and deployment. Oh, and Octocat of course.
• VS Code - everything is just easier when using the same tools as the dev team.
• Jekyll, Nuxt/Vue. CodePen - for prototyping web applications and getting them online fast
• Shortcut (former Clubhouse), Things and Google Workspace - for planning, scoping, spec'ing, to-dos etc.
• I prefer Discord and Slack over MS Teams!

Languages

Born and raised in Denmark, my native tongue is Danish, but I also lived in the US for a few years and speak and write English fluently - with a californian accent - take it or leave it :)

Growing up surrounded with our Scandinavian and German neighbors, I understand most Swedish and Norwegian and some German. I am currently working on my Spanish.

Agents

Contact

Daniel Aakjær Sørensen
Plantevej 23, 4. th.
2870 Dyssegård
E-mail: test
Mobile: +45 25 33 75 48