About

Design Director / Product Designer / Map Maker

Design helps people see

I’ve been building and leading design teams for over twenty-five years. Most recently, my focus has been enterprise SaaS applications. I built the design team at Meltwater and drove a complete redesign of the product suite. Meltwater helps organizations gain market intelligence by understanding trends in news and social media. It fueled my passion for news, data visualization and delivering actionable insights through the design of information.

Prior to Meltwater I directed the design of websites and consumer products at Sony, Yahoo, Motorola, and a startup called Plastic Logic. I’ve hired and coached product designers, user experience researchers, content writers, engineers and design system designers.

The common thread in all of my work is a belief that design helps people see. This can take the form of prototypes, a quick sketch, diagrams, sticky notes in a design sprint, or a map. Design helps companies visualize where they want to go. Like a well designed building, it also helps users understand where they are and where they’re going.  

I studied architecture and design in college. I started professional life as an exhibit designer in New York City working for the early pioneer of interactive experience design, Edwin Schlossberg. This work led me to the field of product design and a move to California. I joined Sony to help them transition from stand-alone devices to networked services and was awarded over twenty U.S. patents for networked media products.

I also make maps. They are a fascinating media type that mixes visual and typographic elements. Maps dance between images that we view and text that we read. They are interesting design problems and the experience of creating them has informed my other work.

My other activities have included serving on the Board of Directors at the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco, serving as a juror for the Smithsonian Institute’s National Design Awards. I’ve also volunteered as a camp counselor and site committee member for Camp Okizu, a camp for children and families dealing with cancer. When I’m not working, I enjoy kayaking, travel, hiking and camping. Most of all, I love being with my wife, Anne.

Contact: amproehl (at) gmail . com