Resume

Derek Torsani

— designer, musician, friend to all.

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About

I create through a lens of self-expression and not validation, nor judgement on any other way of living. Design and music are avenues of global change, interlingual communication, and the way we understand one another. It brings access of familiarity to individuals unfamiliar with accessibility and opens pathways of inclusivity.

Let's change the way we eat, the change the way live, and let's change the way we treat each other. —Tupac Shakur, 1992



Value

Choosing to Not Wear a Smart Watch

I value honest and open communication and listening over knowing the latest notification I've received. I keep my phone on silent and do not disturb to ensure I'm engaged in the conversation or activity I'm in at the moment rather than being distracted and not giving the human or task I'm focused on my respect and attention. Besides, the watch I wear was my grandfathers.



Value

Reading in a Tangible Format

I spend the greater part of my day on my laptop either designing or making music. Instead of endlessly scrolling through feeds of friends I don't truly connect with, mostly filled with gossip, complaints, or non-cerebral memes, I choose to not be on social media and would rather read a book. The health of my eyes and my mind are important to me, so I read in printed format on environmental and social topics that help me reflect on the world and positively contribute to moving it forward.



Value

Giving of My Resources

I stand for accessible education and volunteering more than I do earning a dollar. As much as I'm able to, I give away design assets I create and never start a side project with a goal of monetizing. In my spare time, I'd rather get outside and clean up trash from the park than freelance for extra income. I recognize my privilege to be able to choose to do this, and commend people like teachers (my sister) who are underpaid for the amount of effort they invest in their students and impact they have on future generations and society.



Value

Learning from Podcasts, Music, and Video

I'm influenced creativity and spiritually mostly by hearing people who are different than myself tell their stories. Everyday I digest media and current events by listening to a variety of different podcasts by people with similar and vastly different lived experiences than my own, music that comes from all over the world, and watching films that explore new ideas and explain different perspectives visually.



Value

Fine Tuning My Craft

I'm not a techie. I don't even like that word, or any buzz word or acronym for that matter. I don't enjoy exclusive language that doesn't allow different demographics and identities of people to understand a message and join in conversation. This is why I design and make music. I believe these are universal languages that allow for inclusivity and challenge us to think about how others see and experience the world. I don't believe I need to know the latest cryptocurrency or use the same illustration style and color palette that every other designer is using to further my knowledge in my industry and refine my craft.




Senior Product Designer

Currently, I am leading design systems at Oracle Data Cloud, designing responsive web interfaces in the data management and analytics workspaces, and animating marketing videos.

User Experience, Web, Motion, Graphic Design

In the past decade, I have worked with small agencies animating motion graphics, large brands telling visual stories through film, fast-paced startups intersecting business goals with design, and tech companies conducting user research, drawing wireframes, and prototyping interfaces.

For the past two years, I've been focused on building cohesively elaborate design systems for distributed teams at large software companies. While this may come with great challenges, it is rewarding to enable people to work together more consistently, efficiently, and in stronger communicative bounds.

Maker

Halfdollar is a free spreadsheet budgeting template built for collaboration. It enables you to manually log transactions of varying frequencies, then calculates leftover amounts, plan to actual comparisons, and predict annual forecasts.

Visit Halfdollar →
Maker

Weiigh is a spreadsheet that helps you weigh your options and preferences, and decide between two or more choices.

Visit Weiigh →
Maker

SeeSound is an exploration to make sound accessible to people who experience hearing loss.

See Sound for Yourself →
Musician

One half of Intermission, a rhythm and blues music duo.

Listen to Intermission →
Contributor

I became one of the first to complete all 100 days of the DailyUI design challenge, and animated every single one. Even got a feature on their homepage.

My most popular prompt was awarded "Best of the Day in Android" by UpLabs.

View My DailyUI →
Contributor

One of my hobbies is taking and editing photography on my phone and I'm thankful for communities like Unsplash which allow my photos to have been viewed over 10,000,000 times.

View All My Photos →