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 digital services and consumer products at Sony, Yahoo, and Motorola. I’ve hired and mentored 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 many forms. prototypes, the mythical napkin sketch, diagrams, sticky notes, or a map. They all increase shared understanding of a vision. Design helps users understand where they are and where they’re going and companies visualize the future.  

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 envision their transition from analog devices to networked digital services. I hold over twenty U.S. patents for networked media products.

I also make maps. With their subtle mix of visual and typographic elements, maps are a unique medium. They dance between images that we see and text that we read. 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 travel, hiking and camping. Most of all, I love being with my wife, Anne.

Contact: amproehl (at) gmail . com