Masterful Visual Designer with over 16 years of experience developing commercially successful corporate branding campaigns. Adept at creating and implementing internal interface designs. An inventive company problem solver who excels as both an individual producer and team leader.
KUDOS FOR THOMAS THORSLUND:
“Tom is great converting the ambiguous & complex to incredible visual solutions while ensuring consistency between platforms. He is a great collaborator -- always open to feedback, iterates quickly, keeps the mood light and delivers on time… He makes a real impact and raises the quality of work around him.”
“Tom can create an icon for almost anything. It's like magic! His approach is simplistic yet very effective. His unique style and aesthetics worked successfully for the complete products’ rebranding.”
“Tom has successfully established himself as the go to guy for any visual design challenge. Even with remote working environment, it’s been a great experience collaborating with him.”
“Tom worked across multiple disparate product teams creating hundreds of icons for both the Windows and Mac platforms.
“He combined vast creativity with consistency of design to raise the quality of our icon designs to a whole new level.”
“The high volume of our deliverables would have overwhelmed many people, but Tom is a great collaborator, he iterates quickly, keeps his great sense of humor under stress, and is diligent about his work – all of which aided our success.
“Tom's design skills are phenomenal, he is a natural talent - a gifted illustrator, [with] a great eye for color and design and no one could hold a candle to his icon mastery!”
“Tom's design talent combined with his resourcefulness, experience, and sense of teamwork made him a pleasure to work with.”
Source: www.linkedin.com/in/thomasthorslund/
CORE COMPETENCIES
Design Systems
Visual Design
UI Design
UX Design
Iconography
Branding
Illustrations
Logo Design
Mobile Design
WORK HISTORY
SENIOR UX DESIGNER - Charles Schwab
El Paso, Texas - Remote in Los Angeles, California – July 2022 – CURRENT
Joined the Everest design system team to help re-build their existing Sketch UI kit in Figma
Closely collaborated with developers and project leads to research, design, implement and test multiple new components for the design system
Leveraged past icon and logo design experience to collaborate on and produce the final assets for the new Everest Design System logo
Conducted an accessibility audit of the current design system to identify areas for improvement, including adjusting the color palette to align contrast values across hues, redefining interactive patterns to be consistently applied across the system
Created, managed and maintained documentation on the design systems style guide website to ensure components are implemented correctly across design teams
Assisted in Figma training sessions to help onboard teams both to Figma, and to the Figma UI Kit
Presented new components and UI kit updates through team sharing sessions and UX all hands meetings
LEAD UX VISUAL DESIGNER - Ivanti
South Jordon, Utah (Remote in Los Angeles, California) Jan 2021 - April 2022
When acquired, hit the ground running by being the first member from the MobileIron UX team to join the Ivanti UX team leading Visual Design efforts on the Ivanti Design System (IDS).
Collaborated with the UX team to re-build the entire component library from the ground up to have a simple, modern and unified look and feel which included:
Fully redesigning and rigorously testing the primary and secondary color palettes, along with all common UI components to not only meet WCAG Accessibility compliance (a first for Ivanti), but also to find the most visually pleasing solutions within the limited spectrum of colors.
Collaborating with fellow visual designers to build a large library of custom glyph icons
Working closely with design managers, UX designers, user researchers and engineers to contribute my MobileIron design systems experience to the IDS team, while also learning the unique impacts and limitations of updating and fully re-designing the entire current Ivanti Design System (IDS).
Created product logo designs for Mac and iOS applications including Ivanti ScreenShare iOS, Ivanti Updater, and Ivanti Calendar
LEAD VISUAL DESIGNER - MobileIron
Mountain View, California Feb 2018 - Dec 2020
Led a full design re-branding initiative for the entire product suite to update all product icons in a sleek, modern and consistent family of easily recognizable logos.
Collaborated with the UX team to design several mobile features and apps from the ground up including AppStation, Zero Sign On (ZSO), Mobile Threat Defense (MTD), Docs@Work and FilePass.
Enhanced internal branding assimilation by helping to design and create an internal graphics standards and asset repository.
Aligned with product teams to help conceptualize and create new graphic illustrations for onboarding screens to help bring an end-user feel to corporate applications
UX VISUAL DESIGNER - VMware Inc.
Palo Alto, California 2011 - 2017
Originated and optimized both internal and external corporate branding for a commercially profitable, $7B revenue company that provides cloud computing and platform virtualization software and services.
Established VMware’s strong market presence by creating highly visible product icons, including: VMware Horizon, vRealize Operations (vRops), vRealize Automation (vRAC), vCloud Air, vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC), vRealize Business (ITBM), Watchlist, vCloud Director, vCloud Hybrid Service, Depot Manager, and numerous additional images.
Collaborated with the UX Visual Design team in the complete rebrand of VMware’s suite of products from the initial concepts, sketches and mock-ups, through to delivering the final assets, with fully documented design specifications. Developed an updated, fresh look, upholding the visual identity of VMware’s brand.
Managed hundreds of individual, company-wide design requests. Executed projects with competing deadlines. Worked with teams in multiple locations and time zones to ensure brand consistency and instant recognition.
Enhanced company icon library by designing a full, accessible collection as Lead Designer of Iconography. Supported the Central Design Team and served as a Visual Designer for the combined User Experience Team for Icon Design.
Generated a workbench for archiving thousands of graphic elements to be shared easily with development teams.
Led full product redesigns for all company “end user” facing products while reconciling the look and feel of VMware products and branding with new acquisitions and partnerships, such as Zimbra and Amazon Web Service.
Crafted multiple sets of matching icons for various end-user interfaces and administrator consoles including the vSphere Web Client, vRealize Operations, Horizon Workspace, adding hundreds of workflow icons to the company wide icon library.
VISUAL DESIGNER - Citrix Systems
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida / Santa Clara, California 2007 - 2011
Created designs for Citrix Receiver, the first and most popular virtualization app for iPhone and iPad, which was presented at the 2010 Synergy conference and resulted in the application achieving 2 million downloads in the first two weeks. As a member of a small, handpicked team working directly with our CEO, I had access to a guarded iPad prototype throughout the project.
Led the Citrix Studio Design Team and initiated streamlined production methods to increase quality and consistency.
Co-Developed a new visual identity in support of a company-wide, rebranding initiative to advance graphic standards.
Established and implemented a previously non-existent, “higher quality level” for all icons produced in the company.
Invented user friendly, visually pleasing products and user interfaces with Interaction Designers and Developers.
Collaborated with Production Studio in the creation of an original icon library and unique iconic language.
Promoted from Visual Designer Contractor in 2010 to Lead Visual Designer Employee and relocated to Santa Clara, CA.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER - Vinylot Graphics
Florida 2005 - 2007
Produced full corporate identities and promotional materials for various clientele, such as Enterprise Rental Cars.
Designed logos, website layouts, business cards, banners, posters, brochures, uniforms, vehicle wraps, and decals.
TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
Figma
Sketch
Affinity Designer
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
EDUCATION
Graphic and Desktop Design
The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida 2006
Design Honors Program
3.6 GPA
Nominated for Best Portfolio
Won Bronze Medal for Best Portfolio in Graphic Design