About
Dragos M.
Ristici

Dragos is an experienced designer with a passion for brand stories. Born and educated in Romania, he is currently based in Bucharest, working for IBM since 2017.

He is extremely lucky to witness first hand (and help) the IBM's complex visual transition towards an incredibly beautiful and functional brand matrix, applied across all of its' hero brands.

Dragos has worked with (or for) brands like Microsoft, ING Bank, Vodafone, Edenred (Accor), GDF Suez Energy, but also with startups like Symphopay, We plan, ACJ, or with human rights initiatives like One World.

Work
experience

IBM | Bucharest, Romania
Designer (Feb 2017 - Present)
Part of the internal design agency (IBM Marketing Studio) which supports the worldwide marketing effort to implement the new IBM Design Language.

Working well in a team and also leading (and part of) a number of projects, from concept to implementation, with research, analysis, backlog and prioritisation, user flows, UI and dev hand-over. A highly versatile background allows him to share the same language with the developers and can easily integrate as part of the dev team.

Blue Point IT Solutions | Bucharest, Romania
Lead Designer (June 2011 - Jan 2017)
Leading the design team on main e-learning projects for clients like Microsoft, ING Bank, Edenred (Accor), Telekom, Rompetrol, and others.
Leading the effort of localising Skillsoft catalog in Romania for multi-year projects like Bizschool (OTE Academy, Romtelecom/Telekom & Blue Point trained over 9000 SME managers in a nation-wide project).

Blue Point IT Solutions | Bucharest, Romania
Sr Designer (Apr 2009 - May 2011)
Responsible for updating and extending the design system and the UX framework for custom e-Learning infrastructures (LMS and courses) in a SCORM compliant environment.

UTI Systems | Nederlands & Romania
Designer (May 2005 - March 2009)
He served as a creative designer and UI designer for various software products. He also participated and contributed in the effort of rebranding and repositioning of various software products.

Hugely passionate about the renaming process, he named a lot of products like Ectorian, Cryptora, Qualient, Cendient, Pyus, Quador, Smarture, and others. (Ex: Ectorian - the official nation-wide implemented software product that tracks and automatically processes road traffic offenses. The name comes from the association of econtra and torrens, which in latin means "against speeding".)

Abbottsfield Training | Portland, Oregon, US
Designer (Feb 2001 - Feb 2005)
His role as a designer in a fast moving e-learning environment shifted his focus towards experimentation and embracing the trial & error process.

Building e-learning courses for giants like International Paper (over 300k employees and contractors then) shaped his inclination towards usability and improving the user experience. He learned that "more simple" is, in most cases, synonymous with "makes more sense".

Education

Faculty of Cybernetics | ASE Bucharest, Romania
Bachelor's degree, Computer science (2020 - 2023)

Always learning in the age of AI & ML, he's pursuing a formal gap closure between design and development. Sharing the same language with developers can be decisive in complex projects.

CALARTS (California Institute of the Arts) | Coursera
UI/UX Design specialization (2020)

Visual Elements of User Interface Design (Michael Worthington)
UX Design Fundamentals (Michael Worthington)
Web Design: Strategy and Information Architecture (Roman Jaster)
Web Design: Wireframes to Prototypes (Roman Jaster)

IDF (Interaction Design Foundation) | Interaction Design .Org
UX Management: Strategy and Tactics (Nov 2019 - Mar 2020)

IDF (Interaction Design Foundation)
The Practical Guide to Usability (Nov 2019 - Mar 2020)

Faculty of Finance & Banking | ASE Bucharest, Romania
Bachelor's degree, finance (1996 - 2000)

National College of Informatics "Tudor Vianu" | Bucharest, Romania
Informatics, Computer science (1991 - 1995)

Badges | Your Acclaim
Accessibility Advocate
Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner
IBM Agile Explorer