Live · takes payments
EchoBorn
A community platform for Warframe players. Its own engines compute the game's world cycles, so it kept working through a nine-hour outage of the public data feed.
echoborn.net ↗Stephan von Falkenstein
Available now · remote
Creative Director
Product Designer
AI Product Engineer
I design it, build it, and ship it — with my own AI agents doing the work of a team.
- 27 years in entertainment, media & software
- 4 products built this year, design to release
- 1 person to talk to. No agency in between.
Looking for a senior full-time role. Open to contract work too, and small questions are welcome.
01
What I can build for you
Senior judgement and hands on the keyboard. I can lead the room, then go and build what we agreed.
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A
AI products, end to end
LLM features, agents, retrieval, local models. Built so they still work when the model has a bad day.
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B
Product & UX design
Research, flows, interfaces. From a first sketch to the screen people actually tap.
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C
Design systems
Tokens, components, rules. One source of truth that a whole product, or a whole fleet of them, can share.
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D
Front-end & full-stack
I write the production code: web apps, a CMS, a Windows desktop app, payment flows, release pipelines.
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E
Creative direction & brand
Identity, art direction, campaigns. Learned at Red Bull, NowThis and in fashion, in front of the camera and behind it.
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F
Ship it & run it
Hosting, analytics, store submission, checkout, the boring parts that decide whether a launch survives week one.
02
Shipped this year
Designed, engineered and launched by me, with my agents. Real products, live and running. Click through and try them.
Live · takes payments
Mars Deck
An interactive solar system with 6,200 real bodies, a launch-window solver and an AI you can ask questions. Runs in the browser, on canvas, with no framework.
marsdeck.net ↗Live in the Microsoft Store
WREN
Local dictation for Windows. Speech-to-text that runs on your own machine, with no network connection at all. Free to install from the Microsoft Store.
Get it in the Microsoft Store ↗In production
EchoHex
My own content management system: ten modules, an on-page editor and a self-updater. It runs behind several of my live sites.
Live · releasing music
Synth Sophia
An AI-assisted music artist I created and direct, from the songs to the visuals. Her releases come out on Instagram, and she is signed to 7 Minutes from Mars.
@synthsophia on Instagram ↗Launching soon
7 Minutes from Mars
My record label, home to five artists including Synth Sophia. The site runs on EchoHex, with a releases module I built for it.
03
Case studies
Four projects, from first idea to live launch.
Five minutes each.
04
“Senior doesn’t mean hard to talk to.”
People sometimes see the years and assume I only take big, expensive briefs. I don’t. I like small, clear problems as much as big ones, and I answer my own email.
What I bring is the part that doesn’t show up in a portfolio: I’ve seen a lot of launches go wrong, so I know where to look first.
- Lead design for your product team
- Build the AI feature on your roadmap
- Prototype an idea in a week
- Give your design system a second opinion
05
How I build: one person, the output of a team
I work with Vonfal AI, an agent system I built for myself. The agents write, test and remember. I decide what gets built and what good looks like.
stephan@vonfal:~$ vonfal --how-i-build
[ok] memory Every decision is written down. No project starts from zero.
[ok] checks 1,483 automated checks guard one live product alone.
[ok] proof Each check is broken on purpose before it is trusted.
[ok] honesty If it can’t be measured, the page doesn’t claim it.
[ok] ship Design → code → payments → store → live.
stephan@vonfal:~$
Mostly private repositories. GitHub counts the work without showing the code.
06
27 years, selected
New York, Berlin and the Canary Islands. Brands, startups and my own products.
- 2025–nowAI Product Engineer, Full-StackVonfal AI: WREN, Mars Deck, EchoBorn, EchoHex CMS, Synth Echoes
- 2018–nowCreative DirectorSafehouse Lab: design systems, brand, streaming, VR research
- 2015–16Senior Product DesignerNowThis: vertical video systems, playlist system, rebrand
- 2015Senior UI DesignerAmerican Express: mobile card ordering, design system
- 2014–15Creative DirectorTigerspike NYC: UX and UI practice for enterprise clients
- 2014Senior Product DesignerIHS Markit: data-dense engineering software
- 2013–17Muse Template DeveloperAdobe Muse: themes and widgets used by designers worldwide
- 2012–13Art DirectorRed Bull: Stratos, New York Red Bulls, World Rally Championship
- 2012UX / CX E-commerce ConsultantRiedel, the wine glass company: riedel.com redesign
- 2011UX Research ScientistSpotify: research for the first iPad app
- 2011Senior UX ConsultantHavas Life
- 2007–11Art Director, Partner, Strategist20th Street Media · Project 35 · Obama for America
- 2002–09Fashion ModelMiami, Hamburg, Tokyo, Milan. Where the eye was trained.
07
What people say
From the people I have designed, built and shipped with.
I worked with Stephan in New York at Tigerspike, where he significantly elevated our visual and UI design skills. … To this day I still remember some tips and tricks that have helped me in my own career.
Stephan is a Creative Director with a great heart and a small ego, who strives for design excellence. … He is a true team player.
Stephan’s work is always top-notch and always exceeds expectations. Stephan is reliable, professional and a true partner.
His dedication to design is contagious. I learned a lot working with Stephan … and he managed to find time to mentor designers on the team.
Stephan’s expertise, creativity, and dedication transformed my vision into a beautifully functional reality.
Stephan was an incredible help and sparring partner for our Social Media strategy and other projects following.
I’ve worked with Stephan several times around the world and must say his Vision, Work, and Effort is amazing!
Graf Stephan von Falkenstein’s work in web development and digital media has been instrumental in establishing the modern presence of the House of Ascania.
08
Find me elsewhere
Work in progress, behind the scenes, and the code itself.
09