Black and white close-up photo of a middle-aged man with short, light-colored hair, wearing a dark T-shirt, looking directly at the camera with a serious expression. Background includes office computer monitors.

I’m Karl Smyth and I’m an Irishman based in Portugal. I've spent more than 25 years designing brands, products and digital experiences.

I started in animation, moved through advertising and branding, into product design, and currently lead the design team at a fintech. My job is to make complex products easier to understand and easier to use.

Over the years I've created campaigns, branding and products for large companies including Coca-Cola, Vodafone and Sony, and for smaller companies and startups. I've learned from both.

These days I'm most interested in helping growing companies build better products and stronger design teams.

I'm also exploring how AI can support the design process through research, ideas and prototyping, but I still believe the important decisions need people.

I speak at events including Web Summit, The Next Web and Friends of Figma about design, creativity and the changing role of AI in our industry.

Design never stands still. Neither should we.

  • Lead design for an FX platform used by businesses, partners and professional traders. I work across customer products, partner platforms and internal tools, alongside Product, Engineering, Compliance and Leadership.

    Some key things I've worked on include:

    • Cutting customer onboarding from 30 minutes to around 10.

    • Making the trading experience easier to understand with simpler language and clearer journeys.

    • Building a design system that's shared across products, making design and development faster and more consistent.

    • Rebuilding the dashboard into something people actually use every day.

    • Helping the product and brand grow together as the company prepared for its Series A funding.

    • Mentoring designers, improving the way the team works together, and introducing AI where it genuinely saves time without replacing good judgement.

    The goal is always the same: make a complex product feel simple, useful and trustworthy.

  • Led product design for the MVP of an esports media platform that helped publishers, brands and creators discover, license and manage gaming content.

    Working closely with the founders, I helped turn an ambitious idea into a product that people could understand, use and invest in.

    My work included:

    • Shaping the product vision and designing the MVP.

    • Creating simple workflows for finding, licensing and sharing esports images and video.

    • Designing tools for creators and publishers to manage and earn from their content.

    • Helping tell the product story to investors and potential partners.

    The MVP played a key role in securing early investment and building industry partnerships.

  • Some co-founder experience! A live rugby prediction app where fans could make match calls before the referee or TMO.

    The idea was simple: turn watching rugby into a shared, interactive experience by rewarding fans for making fast, accurate predictions during live games.

    The app was successfully piloted during the British & Irish Lions Tour with Premier Sports, attracted interest from other sports organisations, and was later explored as a model for sports beyond rugby.

  • A platform that connected independent breweries with local beer lovers, by allowing users to discover small-batch beers, pre-order limited releases, follow the brewing process, and collect their orders directly from the brewery.

  • Led the creative direction at a travel tech startup that helped people discover stories and culture as they explored a city.

    Many travellers don't have the patience or time to spend with a guidebook, so we used the users locations to show and tell them interesting stories.

    My work included:

    • Designing the mobile apps and the platform behind them.

    • Launching the first city guide apps for Apple Watch on the day the watch was released in 2015.

    • Growing the platform to cover 16 cities in seven languages.

    • Building a marketplace where travel writers and tourism organisations could publish their own guides.

    • Designing the product, brand, user experience, copy and audio content.

    I also spoke about the product at Web Summit, The Next Web and the Global Entrepreneurship Congress about what we were doing.

    Early enough in the mass adoption of smart devices, it was a great lesson in building products, growing a marketplace and the realities of startups, and my first experience in dealing with investors!

  • Purple is where I really learned my craft.

    I joined on the day the studio opened and grew from a middleweight designer into the company’s design director. I worked on branding, advertising and campaigns for clients in Ireland and around the world, across print, TV and digital.

    Some of the brands I worked with included Sony, O2, RTÉ, Brennan's Bread, SuperValu, Alltech and the Diabetes Federation of Ireland.

    More than anything, this is where I learned how to solve problems with design, work closely with clients and teams, and turn ideas into work that people connect with.

    I still have a great relationship with the studio and continue to collaborate with them on projects from time to time.

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