Paul Banks, AI Product Designer blending Art Direction and the art of play with code

Skip the instrumentPaul Banks, AI Product Designer blending Art Direction with code, over a glowing orange form from Color & Noise, the instrument.Paul Banks, AI Product Designer blending Art Direction with code, over a glowing orange form from the Color & Noise instrument.

Three errors in its noise math once shattered this shape.How I found them

Selected work

2021–2024 · Fintech

Sr / Lead product designer

Credit Karma

77%

under money stress · Dscout n=300

Problem
The first thing to break is the ability to set a goal.
Move
Goal-setting as the intervention: a named goal first, with progress as control.
Result
Goal-setting as a first-class flow for 140M+ members.
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2023–2024 · Connected fitness

Product designer

Peloton

3 surfaces

one ride on bike, tread, and app

Problem
The ride ended when the class ended.
Move
Moments as reusable components across bike, tread, and app.
Result
A post-ride global rank by difficulty is why the next class happens.
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2025–2026 · EdTech · Crypto

Lead product designer

DigiCred

2 × 0→1

an institutional wallet and a student identity

Problem
Proof lives in too many places, and none of it is checkable.
Move
A wallet to hold, match, and apply with verified credentials.
Result
QR or API import to a verified card, then apply with a KanonVDR audit trail.
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2024–2025 · Real estate

Lead product designer

MustWants

198

agents tested, with 14 buyers over nine months

Problem
The company was named MustWants. The feed still scored everything 100%.
Move
Lifestyle compatibility before tours, designed in Figma and Cursor.
Result
Tested over nine months. Not shipped.
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2017–2020 · Cannabis e-commerce

Founding product designer

iHeartJane

3,567

products across 17 shops

Problem
The product card made Add to Cart hard to find.
Move
A denser menu, a visible add-to-cart, then a Jane AI budtender that recommends by feel.
Result
Ranked products, local availability, and a clear pickup or delivery choice.
Read the case

Full Client List

  • Iron Link Intel2025-2026Lead Product Designer
  • DigiCred2025-2026Founding Product Designer
  • MustWants2024-2025Founding Product Designer
  • Credit Karma2021-2024Lead / Senior Product Designer
  • Peloton2023-2024Senior Product Designer
  • frog2021-2021Senior Interaction Designer
  • Ancestry2020-2021Senior Designer
  • iHeartJane2017-2020Founding Product Designer
  • Walmart2017-2018Senior Art Director
  • Sony PlayStation2015-2017Lead Product Designer
  • Samsung2013-2015Senior Concept Designer
  • Advertising2011-2013Associate Creative Director
  • Advertising2009-2011Art Director

My Design Process

  1. Research
  2. Remix
  3. Test
  4. Iterate

Every brief gets two answers: the safe version, and an extreme remix of two unrelated products. Both get tested; the survivor gets iterated. AI frees the time to explore more solutions and learn faster.

  1. Real estate×Dating

    Safe version. Beds, baths and a price filter.

    See MustWants

  2. Travel agent×Cannabis marketplace

    Safe version. A tidier category menu.

    See iHeartJane

  3. Drum machine×Portfolio

    Safe version. A grid of case studies.

    See Color and Noise

I partner with product and engineering from discovery through ship, and I still build the interfaces in code.

Now designing
Interfaces for agentic systems where a person makes the critical decision: confidence scores, agent states, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints as core product primitives.
The team
Alongside your product and engineering partners, I bring a sprint team of specialist agents, one per stage: Research, Metrics, Design System, Prototype, User test, Deploy.
Rules
I used to hate guardrails. Now with AI and non-linear thinking, I haven’t found a set of rules I can’t get around.

My Agentic Design Studio

01 / Direct

Sets direction. Receives handoffs. Makes the call.

Director

Paul Banks

Building

Products I build in code and ship in the open.

Design System

Every color, size and space on this page is a token.

Type
PP Frama Black for chapter titles and the back cover, by Pangram Pangram. Tanker for figures, by Indian Type Foundry. Source Sans 3 for text and the running head.
Inks
  • Stock--hero-base
  • Parchment--hero-text
  • Apricot, the second ink--hero-apricot
  • Velocity, for links--signal-velocity
  • Logic Pulse, for actions--cta-fill
Plates
Every cover is drawn in code: vector, voxel and three.js. No generated images.

Printed from Design.md, which compiles to the CSS variables this page reads. The same rules guide collaborators and the agents I use.

Open the design system