My Approach
I’ve always seen design as a holistic activity. And because of my multidisciplinary experience my expertise spans the entire product development process.
More practically, I help to ensure that products have strong architectural and goal-driven foundations, are designed with clarity and expressiveness, and attend to personal needs; they are finely crafted, performant, and accessible to everyone.
A few central tenets of my work are:
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Start with those who need the most help.
Accessibility and inclusion are the foundations of a good experience, and must be fully integrated into the process to be truly achieved.
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Share knowledge, and grow your peers.
It’s not enough for a designer to just do good work. They must share their knowledge and grow those around them. This is the key to building a great product, or team.
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Everything is meaningful.
The difference between a good experience and a great one is understanding how even the smallest of details can influence a user’s perception or behavior.
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The right way is not always the known way.
Practice skepticism and go beyond to understand why something exists. Only then can you truly know how to wield it.
Endorsements
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Having worked intensively with him on design systems, documentation and web-accessibility guidelines, I can’t remember any colleague or friend being as meticulous as Nik. It’s rare to see such attention to detail and semantics as working with Nik infectiously moves you to look one step further.
Luuk BartenLead Front-End Developer, Team Liquid -
Nik takes the extra step to ensure code, design, and functionality is always inclusive. His work is extremely intentional and specific. What’s more, Nik has a history of knowledge far beyond the scope of design and development. He has shown me what to expect in working with an amazing lead or executive designer.
Indu ReddyAssociate Creative Director, Crunchyroll -
Nik is incredibly open minded and curious, and will always give feedback & criticism careful consideration. And his unique insights from his multi-talented background have contributed to creating approaches & solutions we wouldn't have even considered, much less entertained.
He's incredible at finding color in black and white—so the "boring work" is almost never boring, and the difficult-to-swallow becomes easy-to-digest.Tiffany PengAssociate Creative Director, Team Liquid -
Nikolas has the ability to take some of the densest information and be able simplify it for others to understand. He has a unique approach that combines both creative and scientific techniques to things.
Stacey YamadaBrand Design Lead, Team Liquid