About · Creative Optimist
Bill Klingensmith
Design & technology leader. I build digital products — and the systems and teams behind them. The name’s from the old idiom for doing your best: bend over backwards, go the extra mile.
20+
Years designing products
63
Projects shipped
2
Design systems founded
1st
Design hire · founded the practice
For 20+ years I’ve moved from print production to digital and web to leading product design — founding design systems, shaping operator and admin tooling, partnering with engineering to take net-new products from concept to production. I taught design at RIT and SIUE, co-founded local-food ventures, and led design at Freshop through its acquisition by NCR. Today I lead product design for a multi-tenant retail-media and commerce platform.
“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.”