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Project Overview
Wilco is a platform that helps developers level up through real-world "quests" - simulated work scenarios designed to sharpen skills in a hands-on way. I led the UX and interface design across multiple touchpoints, shaping an experience that feels both playful and professional. My work included designing key user flows, creating interface components, and maintaining visual consistency across the product and marketing site. I collaborated closely with product and engineering to ensure a developer-friendly, intuitive experience that brings Wilco’s mission to life.
I joined Wilco in its earliest days, helping shape the product from the ground up. Over the course of this project, I honed my product design skills across complex systems - from multi-layered dashboards to enterprise-facing interfaces, while also leading the creative direction of the brand and visuals. My position as lead designer included a variety of projects and roles, including: UX and Product Design, Design System Creation & Management, Visual Identity and even pixel art and AI-Assisted image generation workflows
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The Challenge
Wilco set out to reinvent developer training without static tutorials, but with fully interactive, real-world simulations. We aimed to:
- Turn developer onboarding into an immersive, game-like experience
- Let users explore challenges at their own pace with AI guidance and support
- Provide enterprise tools for building custom quests and tracking developer progress
- Visually reflect the platform’s identity: retro-futuristic, technical, and playful
- Let users explore challenges at their own pace with AI guidance and support
- Provide enterprise tools for building custom quests and tracking developer progress
- Visually reflect the platform’s identity: retro-futuristic, technical, and playful
The platform needed to balance playfulness and professionalism, clarity and complexity, personality and performance.
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Strategy & Structure
We structured the platform around several core use cases:
- Quest Library: Browse immersive training missions by topic, skill level, or partner
- Wilco Studio: AI-Powered Internal and client-facing tool to turn tutorials or blog posts into interactive quests
- Dashboard: Track progress, see quest metrics, and share completions
- Marketing and Client Conversion: Dynamic landing pages, testimonials, and calls to action across trywilco.com
- Wilco Studio: AI-Powered Internal and client-facing tool to turn tutorials or blog posts into interactive quests
- Dashboard: Track progress, see quest metrics, and share completions
- Marketing and Client Conversion: Dynamic landing pages, testimonials, and calls to action across trywilco.com
Wilco’s brand needed to stand out in a crowded developer landscape. The creative direction fused a clean, modern UI with clear hierarchy and minimal cognitive load, combined with A retro-futuristic pixel-art visual style, evoking early developer magazines and 80s sci-fi. I chose a playful but legible typography and color for onboarding, alerts, and progress states and consistent illustration language across marketing, product UI, and quest rewards.
I also trained AI models to generate brand-aligned assets using real 1980s computing and science magazines as visual references -resulting in a variety of unique marketing assets. The 80s, retro-coding was felt everywhere - from quests covers to cultural refences from the AI Chatbot.
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Results & Reach
- Wilco launched with major partners including Mixpanel, MongoDB, and CircleCI
- Developers use Wilco to build real projects they can showcase in portfolios
- Product teams use it for onboarding, product adoption, and internal training
- Featured in TechCrunch and other major media for its innovative learning model and unique design
Though metrics are proprietary, engagement with quests and partner content has exceeded expectations - and the AI interaction model is now a central differentiator in the platform.
As for personal results, Working on Wilco sharpened my skills across the board: From Complex systems thinking to AI interaction, from user journeys to internal content tooling. It allowed me to hone my Design system skills, Brand-to-product consistency and Creative innovation. Wilco's slogan, Never Stop Developing is more than just a slogan - it’s a reflection of how I approach design. This project let me build from zero, solve real product challenges, and inject creative weirdness (pixel-art?! 80s style interfaces? Spotify playlists? yes please) into a serious developer tool. It’s one of the most complete and exciting design projects I’ve ever created.
As for personal results, Working on Wilco sharpened my skills across the board: From Complex systems thinking to AI interaction, from user journeys to internal content tooling. It allowed me to hone my Design system skills, Brand-to-product consistency and Creative innovation. Wilco's slogan, Never Stop Developing is more than just a slogan - it’s a reflection of how I approach design. This project let me build from zero, solve real product challenges, and inject creative weirdness (pixel-art?! 80s style interfaces? Spotify playlists? yes please) into a serious developer tool. It’s one of the most complete and exciting design projects I’ve ever created.