Little Labs
ABOUT
See It LiveOverview
Little Labs was a small Venice, California creative studio doing something genuinely ahead of its time, designing for smartwatches just as they were starting to take off. As creative director, I led brand and design across all of our apps, working within locked brand elements and logos that made constraints a core part of the job. The work spanned two emerging platforms most designers hadn't yet figured out, the iMessage App Store, where we built branded sticker packs and experiences for major entertainment properties including The Martian and The Walking Dead, and the smartwatch ecosystem.
Facer Creator
One of the most exciting projects at Little Labs was the Facer Creator, a web first watch face editor that let anyone design their own watch face from scratch, right in the browser. Before this the process was complex and time consuming. We were the first to simplify this and ship to all major brands across all the platforms. I was responsible to design this from ground up in an accelerated timeline.
Facer marketplace
The flagship product was Facer, which became one of the leading watch face marketplaces in the world. Designing for Facer meant working across every major smartwatch platform simultaneously, Apple Watch, Wear OS, and Samsung's Tizen based Galaxy watches, each with its own constraints, resolution, and interaction model. I worked closely with the CEO and the Director of Product for stakeholder approval while balancing spec docs for the devs. Small teams mean a lot of feedback, some great, some not. My job is to hear it out and help clarify the intent so the product gets better. Devs often gave feedback that might overcomplicate the UI, but the underlying insights were usually sound. Our solution was "dev-like advanced controls" tucked into advanced settings, giving power users real control without overwhelming everyday users. A good example was expressions: the team wanted them front and center, but the data showed most users were every day users. Features like that often get cut entirely, and the product suffers for it. Not every feature should ship, but you should always hear the intent and solve for the core problem.
The challenge wasn't just aesthetic. It was learning how to communicate clearly and expressively in an interface where the entire screen is roughly the size of two postage stamps, where the user also has about two seconds of attention at any given moment.
In-house concepts
Not every project at Little Labs was a licensed brand. Some of the most enjoyable work came from original concepts we developed in-house. Ideas like Let's Puck It and Let's Watch It, iMessage apps built around a simple theme and shipped fast. With apps like Let's Watch It, we had a timeline of about an afternoon to create it from start to finish.
We focused on choosing a concept and not overploishing it, committing to it, and proving it worked before spending time polishing it to death. When you remove the pressure of perfection, you make bolder decisions. A strong idea executed with conviction will always outperform a weak one refined to a mirror shine that never ships or ships late.
Star Trek
Some projects land differently. Working with brands I'd grown up loving like Star Trek was the kind of work that doesn't feel like work. I've been sci-fi obsessed for as long as I can remember. The challenge was real though, Star Trek has one of the most passionate and detail literate fan bases in existence. They know the canon, they notice the inconsistencies, and they hold licensed work to a high standard staying true to the core identity while bringing something fresh enough to feel intentional and true to the brand.
Little Labs was quite the ride. We got to work with the biggest brands in the world and dream up apps of our own. Here are some various projects we worked on. Feel free to ask me more about them.
