Tom Johnson

Designer of Experiences and Purveyor of Pixels

Hey, I'm Tom Johnson, welcome to my corner of the interwebs. I’m a designer who's worked in print, promotional, experience, digital, web, and app design.

Currently I work at Asurion in Nashville, where I design experiences for desktop, web, and mobile applications by day, but I consult and design for clients by night. What type of work do I do? Keep scrolling and I'll give you the details and a little bit of explanation into my thought process and the value that I can bring to your projects.

More about me

Articles and Case Studies

Apr 6, 2018 • 6 Min Read

I Failed to Build a Design-Driven Culture

This is a tough one to talk about, folks. This is not an aspirational post, or even one that will give advice on how to avoid my mistakes. I don’t think I can show exactly where I went wrong, or how I could have changed anything. There is no happy ending. Abandon hope all ye who scroll here.

Read On Medium
Apr 2018 • 4 part series

Design and build your agency website

I built an agency website in Webflow. I used minimal classes, flexbox, the CMS, and the API to create it. In this four-part series, I’ll give you tips about using each, and how to get started.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Apr 2018 • 4 part series

What Tesla’s Model 3 UI reveals about its vision for the future

If you’re a designer/car enthusiast this post is for you. I’ve broken down the details of the dashboard controls and interface of the Tesla Model 3, the first mass-market, touchscreen only electric car. The car’s UI design tells us a great deal about Tesla’s long term strategy, and their eyes toward a driverless future.

Read On Medium
July 2017 • Design Case Study

Shift Start Time

If you’re a designer/car enthusiast this post is for you. I’ve broken down the details of the dashboard controls and interface of the Tesla Model 3, the first mass-market, touchscreen only electric car. The car’s UI design tells us a great deal about Tesla’s long term strategy, and their eyes toward a driverless future.

READ THE CASE STUDY
May 24, 2017 • 14 Min Read

You are going to switch to Figma

I’ve read a lot of comparison articles about the two, but I don’t think they really do Figma justice. Some of them briefly mention the team features, the browserness, the components, and constraints, but they don’t really focus on how they’re better than versions in Sketch. At best, they make it seem like both are about the same. The reason I’m writing this is because they’re not.

Read On Medium
Jan 12, 2017 • 5 Min Read

Designers are full of bad ideas

All of my ideas are bad. Every. Single. One. And yet, I still keep having them.My brain is chalked full of inconsistencies, inaccuracies, & incomprehensible iterations of interactions. I stonewall good decisions and necessary processes, spout nonsensical thoughts while opining about the obscure, and pontificate...

Read On Medium
Jan 12, 2017 • 5 Min Read

There are no UX best practices

Recently I downloaded Goldstar on my iPad. It’s a ticket buying app, similar to stubhub or ticketmaster. This is the first screen I saw:I looked for a ‘skip’ button or some other way that I could use the app without actually having to create an account. Maybe there was a subtle arrow or a ‘no thanks’, ‘remind me later’, or a ‘show me the tix’ button?

Read On Medium
Fall 2016 • Design Case Study

Clear Contact

I worked on this app as a proof of concept while studying UX at General Assembly ATL in 2015. My original concept was to redesign a mobile banking application, but I quickly realized that there was a disparity among my interviewees when it came to the problems they had with mobile banking. Many issues were systemic of banking as a whole, and could not be resolved by a simple app redesign.

READ THE CASE STUDY
Jul 27, 2016 • 5 Min Read

Nothing is intuitive

“We need to make it more intuitive”“That’s not intuitive”“Our primary goal is that it be intuitive”…stop. Please. Almost every design discussion I’ve had lately has had one of these quotes. I hear it from clients, large corporations, key stakeholders, developers, other designers, managers, interns, and ESPECIALLY entrepreneurs.

Read On Medium
Jul 30, 2015 • 6 Min Read

Grandma is a user too

About a month ago, I was at a Wendy’s while on vacation in Wisconsin. Work could not be further from my mind, as all my attention was on the tower of beef-n-cheese melty goodness that I had just sat down to eat. I was all-consumed in my beefy effort when, planning and debating on the next bite, when, to my great distress, I noticed a little drama going on in the corner of my eye. A little old lady was trying to get a coke.

Read On Medium

Product, Web, and UI Design

GIF

Bespke

A fake design agency and website for use in a collaborative article with Webflow.

Web
Web Design
Interaction Design
Client Work
Webflow
Flexbox
CASE STUDY

Intradiem.com

A website designed on a system built for fast page load times and reusability of components.

Web Design
CMS
Atomic Design
CSS
Responsive
HTML
Webflow
Enterprise Software

Tesla Model 3

Recreation and prototype of the Tesla Model 3 using Figma.

UI Design
UI Design
Protptype
Client Work
Figma
Flexbox
CASE STUDY

Clear Contact

An app designed to solve the problem of being on hold and customer support.

UI Design
Mobile App
UX Design
Personas
User Research
Prototyping
Android

Interaction & Motion

GIF
iOS
Principle
Empty State
UI Stack
Shift
GIF
Material Design
Principle
Template
GIF
Material Design
Principle
Template
GIF
Principle
Interaction
LOADING

Illustration

Ordinary Objects

What do you get when you combine boredom, a love of Adobe Illustrator, and a really monotonous desk job?

Illustration
Drawing
Vector Art
Print Design

Portraits

An exploration of some geometric techniques and illustration styles.

Illustration
Drawing
Vector Art
Print Design

Logos

Illustration can also be used for commercial applications. This is a collection of some logos I've made over the years.

Illustration
Drawing
Vector Art
Print Design

Sock Monkeys

A series of sock-monkey themed travel posters for my young nephew.

Illustration
Drawing
Vector Art
Print Design

One-offs

Random illustrations from a variety of projects.

Illustration
Drawing
Vector Art
Print Design

Year of the Beard

An ode to famous beards for the Movember competition in my office.

Illustration
Drawing
Vector Art
Print Design

Past Clients

Want to work on a project with me? Just want to chat?

Let's grab a cup of joe, go over the details, and get to work.
Contact Me