Product Design · Front-End · Design Systems
Work smarter. Not harder.
Design principles. Data-informed decisions. Empathy for the customer. 20+ years building digital products and the systems behind them.
What I do
I design data-dense products and the design systems that scale them. Operator tooling, analytics, and commerce platforms.
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Design systems that scale
Founded and architected two design systems that theme a multi-tenant platform across many retail brands with no per-client rework — tokens, components, and governance that keep distributed teams shipping consistently.
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Operator & admin tooling
Data-dense consoles and workflow apps — circular builders, node managers, analytics dashboards — designed so the interface itself makes operators faster.
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AI-augmented prototyping
Idea to working prototype, fast — AI-assisted design-to-code and synthetic data generation, so decisions land on real, interactive product instead of static mockups.
How I work
Design that earns its place in the product.
I start with the operator and the data, not the pixels — problem, constraints, approach, craft, outcome. Every screen is a decision I can defend, built to ship and judged by whether it makes the work easier.
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20+ years across print, digital, and web — classical craft applied to dense, modern product.
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A designer who codes — I prototype in real components, so design and engineering speak one language.
20+
Years
Across print, web, and data-dense product.
1st
Design hire
Founded the practice and set the standards.
63
Projects
Spanning product, systems, and brand.
2
Design systems
Founded and architected from zero, partnering with engineering.
Explore the work
PRODUCT DESIGN
17 projects
DESIGN SYSTEMS
2 projects
WEB DESIGN
3 projects
BRANDING
3 projects
PRINT DESIGN
10 projects
FINE ART
9 projects
About
A designer who codes — leading from the front.
I’m Bill Klingensmith, a Director of Product Design with 20+ years turning complex problems into products people can actually use. I’ve taught design, co-founded food ventures, and helped take a grocery-tech platform through acquisition — a creative optimist who still sweats the details.
“It’s not always about technology. Start with the person on the other side of the screen, and the rest follows: the visual design that earns their trust, the engineering that holds it up, and the concept that ties it together into something that actually solves their problem.”
Let’s build something.
Open to leading product design for teams building data-dense platforms in retail media, commerce, and beyond. If that’s you, let’s talk.
Remote · Salisbury, NC