Berlin-based senior product designer at Phrase. 7 years designing products, and a developer before that. I own the design system our products and AI agents build on, and I've helped every designer on the team start shipping pull requests.
Product design / Design systems / Building with AI
A reorganization cut capacity, and more UI was going to be built by PMs and AI agents. I made Syntax readable by them. PMs and coding agents now build on-brand UI by default, and “agent-ready design system” became company direction, with my spec as the reference.
Where a translation project lives, and the most-visited page in the product. A strategic client couldn't sign, and the fix shipped in time. Then company strategy changed and the redesign sat parked, until agents got good enough to build it with fewer people. The new page is built design-system-first: about 80% design system, up from about 10%.
One design system across seven product UIs in a newly merged company. The hard part was adoption.
Across our products, tables had multiplied, each with different filters, actions and accessibility. One shared table pattern is replacing them.
Earlier work at Wonderflow: an open-source design system focused on accessibility. I contributed guidelines, documentation and component quality checks alongside the lead designer.
Ben can work across almost any area, but he wisely chooses where to concentrate his efforts. In the design system space, his impact truly multiplies teams.
Ben is one of those designers who enhances the work around him. At Phrase, he concentrated on the design system and showed real dedication, encouraging DS engineers to create components that were both powerful and well-crafted. His sense of composition and the rigor he applies to design systems thinking left a strong impression on me. He was always eager to expand his focus beyond just the design system, engaging with the end product and its users.
He was BEYOND a reliable peer for teammates needing help refining the UI or implementing the system, and the praise he received for that collaboration was well-deserved. He generously shares his knowledge, whether by offering best practices or passing along interesting findings. Positive, hardworking, and curious—exactly what you want in a teammate.
I greatly appreciate the deep reframes and challenging questions Ben would share; in that sense, he is a profoundly thoughtful participant in the organization. Ben can work across almost any area, but he wisely chooses where to concentrate his efforts. In the design system space, his impact truly multiplies teams.
Born in a tiny town in Northern Italy, now in Berlin. My first computer game was a math game my dad built in the terminal. I was 3. I still want to know how things work before I design them.
Phrase