skip to content
Headshot of Cole Townsend wearing a yellow sweater

Cole Townsend, Software Designer

Product Designer, Maker, Runner

The key to a successful product is the ability to develop an exceptional team, not a magical playbook nor a single, genius idea.

An exceptional team can make time to define the problem at hand, solve it, be wrong, and make changes. Being wrong is tough, and working thoughtfully is difficult when met with deadlines and challenging business decisions. The team needs a culture of patience, trust, and a lack of ego to support a process of quick, confident delivery, and continuous experimentation. Every day, I aim to support an environment where these values thrive.

Experience


I love building things

I’ve always loved building out self-initiated projects. In college, I redesigned our student website, launched New Old Stock, a photo site. While at thoughtbot, I redesigned the company website, a marketing site for FormKeep, and a Ping Pong scoreboard. At Robin, I gave a talk on building design systems in code. Lately, I've been building out one-off websites and niche Mac apps.

Selected Work


Recent Work