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Dragan Babic enables design within creatively-challenged organizations.

I’ve spent the majority of my career thinking I had to be a designer in order to participate in design.
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Cover Dragan Babic

So, I am a designer. Sort of… If I really had to explain what I do, I’d say I help people make things. My interests and specialties mostly lay in parts of design which are traditionally not considered to be a part of Design.

I’ve always considered “making it work whatever happens” the primary responsibility of any designer. This is why my focus was never limited to creative production, and I always sought out ways outside of what is traditionally considered design to increase the chance of success for the projects I’ve been a part of.

At one point in my career I’ve turned a corner and realized that I should shift focus from improving my own design skills, towards enabling others to work better with each other.

I have always been obsessed with cultivating creative cultures, and creating workplaces which attract amazing people.

These days I am doing business development at Superawesome—a digital product design agency I originally founded back in 2007—but it's the first 10 years of my tenure there which has enabled me to work hands-on with a huge number of people both as an individual contributor, as well as a leader.

I am using this experience to continue to help people and organizations to understand design as an asset, and to be able to work with design professionals smoothly. 

Creating effective design teams.

Do you need to scale design within your organization?
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Kickstarting in-house design cultures.

Are you wondering why you can't retain design staff?
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Design consulting & support.

If you need a sounding board, and domain expertise.
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Design briefs & project discovery.

Having trouble engaging designers for your projects?
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For the past 15+ years I have worked as an individual contributor, as well as a design leader, and often both.

I’ve been the only designer on the team, lead teams of designers, and managed both design and development teams in order to deliver successful digital products.

Growing product design

When I founded Superawesome in 2007 we called it Web design. Now, we are one of the top product design agencies in the region with a tried and tested method for designing digital products.
Design operations

Design staff augmentation

At one point it was sink or swim for us, and the standard vendor-client model wasn't working anymore. I’ve steered Superawesome back into profitability by implementing a staff augmentation model.
Biz dev

Mentoring

Even though I don’t act as an individual contributor at Superawesome anymore, I do my best to support our people through experience, and by providing necessary guidance.
Design leadership

Product strategy.

I've helped a maker of renowned productivity software to overcome an identity crisis, and reimagine how and where their product fits in today's market by creating their new product strategy as a 5 year realignment plan, as well as guidelines and copywriting for their new marketing website.
Design leadership
Design strategy

Figuring out tech for fashion.

The fashion industry is a technologically-challenged one. I’ve helped the client navigate the complex world of non-standardized processes, and difficult paths to change by being their entire design department before they found product-market fit.
Product design
UX/UI

Marketing website for designer furniture maker.

Technologically challenged company that’s very good at what they do struggled with their online representation. I’ve built them a best-in-class website which immediately skyrocketed their inquiries, and implemented several key automations which help them passively grow their user base.
Product design
Implementation

From pivot to pivot.

While working with a startup with an ambition to create the best possible relationship graph, I’ve helped them evolve on their road to market from an outdated MVP-type product, to a fully fledged advertising network.
Design leadership
Product design
UX/UI

UX design & design ops for PLM & MRP SaaS

Designing the right thing, and then designing that thing right are integral parts of the digital product design process. Facilitating that work is an often overlooked effort, which when absent has the potential to wreck teams and destroy products.
Design leadership
Design operations
Product design
UX/UI

Design ops & leadership for a DtC company

Traditional businesses today are faced with a daunting ask, which is to cater to their customers directly through various digital products and interfaces. Setting them up for success by forming their design teams and supporting creative staff is a significant challenge which I helped them overcome.
Design operations

Trailblazing new interfaces for CI

I’ve helped a continuous integration company pioneer the market by designing the entire UX of their initial product offering, as well as designing a couple of their marketing websites. 
Product design
UX/UI

This website has a blog.

Remember these? In the spirit of taking control over my own content I have decided to host everything on this website from now on.

I still interact with people on social media, but I prefer to host the content I create in a single location which is fully under my control.

If you happen to read something you like, please feel free to share it with your nook of the internet. Thank you!

Need a plug-n-play design team?

What if I told you that you don’t need to have designers in-house at all?
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