— Strategic designer
Current position
Currently working at Contentful where I help to define what comes next, lead the research efforts, look after system health and end-to-end customer experience, and coach teams and individuals.
Why hire me?
Examples of my work
01
Helped a company to successfuly navigate in a new market
Built the design capabilities inside the organization, grew design and research teams. Contributed to company’s strategy with research and strategic design. Helped to shape the product and service offerings. In 4 years time yearly revenue grew from $1M to $20M.
Case study coming soon
02
Helped a startup to become a market leader
Helped a startup to redefine their vision, business model, and product and service offerings which led to a 900% increase in active users, 200% increase in the number of partners. It ultimately made them a market leader in their segment.
03
Helped a company to adapt their product offerings and increase sales
While working in the financial sector, led the redesign of one of the two company’s major products, and defined and executed a new product offering. Both initiatives led to a revenue increase by $4M.
Case study coming soon
What do I mean as
Strategic and contra-disciplinary designer?
01
In the 21st-century world, traditional methods and thinking are not enough to solve complex problems. With Speculative Design and Foresight methods I help companies to explore alternative futures, navigate an increasing complexity and uncertainty, and make wise decisions about their future.
02
I use my experience in Strategy, Service design and Experience design to understand how technology, business, and people interact within the larger ecosystem and design new products, services, processes, and systems.
03
As complexity of the world increases, optimizing the system rather than isolated parts becomes an imperative. I consider many moving parts and their relationships, and try to understand where and how to make interventions that will influence positive outcomes.
04
Strategic design is a team effort where success depends on the ability to work with diverse functions and multiple stakeholders. As a strategic designer, my role is to involve, align and coordinate people with different visions towards reaching the same goal.
05
Designing products and services often means redesigning the organization that delivers them. I spend a significant amount of time in building design capabilities inside organizations and trasferring knowledge on both individual and group level.
Something personal
Biography
My background is in software engineering and project management and I am using my previous experience to inform the work today. Since 1992, I worked in various sectors such as financial, educational, and government. Prior to moving to Berlin and joining Contentful, I co-owned with my wife an experience design consultancy in Belgrade.
Today, I consider myself to be a design pluralist and I feel comfortable working across boundaries of any kind. All this effectively makes me a generalist, but I do specialize in something – being comfortable with the unknown and being able to navigate uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. I bring together research, service design, speculative design, strategy, foresight, and coaching experience to help organizations navigate uncertainty and design for the decades that are yet to come.
Writing
I had an amazing opportunity to contribute to Smashing Book 2 with the chapter on Sketching, Wireframing, and Prototyping. I've also written a few articles on Smashing Magazine and my own blog.
Interviews
It was an honor to appear in Svet Kompjutera (No.12/2012), a leading IT magazine in Serbia, in an interview about user experience design practice. I am also thankful for the opportunity to share designerly thoughts on Interface Lovers in July 2018.
Life outside work
Parenting x3, occasionally writing, co-authored a book, giving talks, designed a typeface, painting and sculpturing, playing guitar and drums.
Selected talks
Contentful, 2015, 2106, 2017, 2018, Berlin •
MaterialUP, 2016, Berlin • UX Belgrade, 2016, Belgrade (Slides) •
StartIt Fest, 2014, Belgrade •
Startup Academy, 2012, 2013, 2014, Belgrade •
Live Local - Work Global: Keynote, 2013, Vrsac •
DaFED, 2013, Novi Sad (Slides) •
RenderConf, 2013, Novi Sad •
FFWD PRO, Zagreb, Croatia (Slides) •
START Conference, 2012, Belgrade •
Microsoft Community Camp, 2012, Kragujevac •
StartIt: Rapid prototyping workshop, 2012, Belgrade •
Feed the Brain, 2012, Venice, Italy •
Mobile Monday, 2012, Belgrade •
Microsoft Sinergija, 2011, Belgrade •
Microsoft Code Camp, 2009, Belgrade •
Microsoft MSDN Day, 2008, Belgrade •
Microsoft WebFu, 2007, 2010 2011, Belgrade
