India

Graphic Design

UX Design

UI/ Visual Design

Branding and Identity Design

Product Design

Generalist Product Management

Interaction Design

Data Analysis

BTech

10th

Hiran Venugopalan

Director, Designs

Schedule Meeting

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Time management

Critical-thinking

Empathy

Leadership

Analytical skills

Figma

HTML

Project management

Branding

Brand strategy

Design systems

Information architecture

Typography

Newsletter writing

Product strategy

Understanding factors that lead to a motivated team - recognition, communication and more.

Keeping team members motivated

Understand the process of training, motivating and directing your team members.

Managing people

How to create a positive workplace culture that drives collaboration and productivity?

Fostering a good team culture

Steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team.

Building an effective team

Learn the tips to successfully manage a team in a remote environment.

Managing a remote team

Making remote and globally distributed teams work for you and your needs.

Working remotely

Learn essential burnout prevention techniques and replenish physical and emotional energy.

Managing burnout

Talk to people who have learned to manage their imposter syndrome.

Dealing with imposter syndrome

Tips for transitioning into a new role or company.

Changing roles

How to think about design career paths and what progression looks like for designers?

Design career path

Learn the career path and progression for product managers.

Product management career path

Get actionable feedback on your resume or portfolio.

Resume and portfolio review

Practice HR, technical and behavioural interviews with mentors.

Practice mock interviews

How to set up the team for success by defining and measuring team's performance.

Choosing metrics and team goals

Best practices for running productive design critiques.

Running effective design critiques

How to define and execute a successful launch and managing stakeholders expectations. (eg. MVP)

Launching new products or features

Methods of prototyping and solution validation. When to use which kind of prototype (eg. Webflow, Notion, etc)

Prototyping methods and tips

Manage team expectations and get the most out of your meetings.

Running effective meetings

Identify and define potential product problems and generating possible solutions.

Identifying problems vs solutions

Learn how to properly present your work and share ideas and opinions.

Presenting your work with impact

Tips on how to work and collaborate with designers.

Working with designers

How to work with team members with different skill sets but towards a common goal?

Working cross-functionally

Methods and models of exploring, deciding and delivering design.

Building a design process

Managing being the only designer at your company and working with non-designers.

Being the only designer

Explore different generative and evaluative research techniques. User research synthesis and presentation.

Conducting good user research

Ways and resources to improve your design skills.

Improving design skills

Navigating the working relationship with PM's and engineers as a designer.

Working with product and engineering

How to set up product analytics and metrics to track success?

Leveraging Product Analytics

How to create personas, and leverage them in design.

Creating and leveraging user personas

Ways to provide constructive feedback to team members.

Giving effective feedback

Tips on how to work and collaborate with engineers and developers.

Working with engineers

What is a successful user onboarding flow and how to achieve it?

Onboarding new users

How to conduct interviews, what to ask, and how to analyze your results? (eg. user interview)

Conducting effective customer interviews

Quintype is a publishing technology company specialising in new-age digital media. As the Director of Design, I led the design efforts for both the Product and Consumer Division.

During my tenure, I conceptualised, researched, and designed the new version of the core product, with a focus on enhancing Information Architecture, and User Experience. My team also created an atomic design system that serves as the Front-end foundation for all four Quintype products.

I worked directly with multiple news publishers offering them advice on best digital practices and new technology and designed digital properties that currently get 200M+ monthly page views.

These insights led to the strategic development of a content-first customisable frontend builder for digital publishers, which contributed to the scalability of Quintype's Consumer Division and later evolved into the product known as Ahead Page builder.

Bang the Table (now acquired by Granicus) is a leading provider of online stakeholder civic engagement services, catering to government and public sector clients.

In my role, I focused on researching and creating the theme customisation feature for Engagement HQ. I implemented a dynamic colours palette system, offering recommendations aligned with brand guidelines, ensuring readability and accessibility compliance.

Additionally, I took the lead on the design guideline documentation project, which established design practices and component structures for the product.

As a hobby project, along with Orion C Jose, I worked on designing a set of experimental typographic designs in Malayalam (my mother tongue). The designs are inspired by acclaimed regional movies and created based on popular demand. The designs garnered instant virality on Facebook leading to extensive media coverage.

In 2010, I co-founded Saltmangotree, one of India's pioneering social and digital media agencies. What began as a small team of six quickly flourished into a dynamic crew of 80+, operating from two fully-fledged offices across India. In 2014, Saltmangotree was acquired by the French Advertising agency, The Links G&A.

On a day-to-day basis, I led and managed the design and technology teams, crafted campaign strategies, and oversaw the execution of digital campaigns.

Following the acquisition, my responsibilities expanded as I took charge of two new verticals: branding and product designing, while continuing to oversee the technology aspect.

Participated and successfully completed Google Summer of Code 2007 for Swathathra Malayalam Computing, on Development of Ornamental Malayalam Unicode font with Hussain K H as Project Mentor. Designed and released Dyuthi, first Unicode Malayalam Decorative font and licensed it under SIL OFL.

Hiran Venugopalan🇮🇳