SvF

Curriculum vitae 2026

Stephan von Falkenstein

Creative Director · Product Designer · AI Product Engineer

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Summary

Senior creative director and product designer who writes the production code. More than two decades across fashion, media, brands and software, from NowThis, American Express and Red Bull to Spotify. Since 2025 I design, build and ship AI products end to end with my own agent system: a solar-system engine with a grounded AI assistant, a private on-device dictation app published in the Microsoft Store, and the CMS that runs my sites. Looking for a senior full-time role in design, product or AI engineering; open to contract work.

Skills

Product & UX
Product design, UX research, interaction design, prototyping, mobile and responsive design, e-commerce UX, information-dense interfaces
Design systems
Design tokens, component libraries, brand systems, cross-platform identity, vertical video format systems
AI engineering
LLM integration, grounded generation (model limited to computed facts), AI agents and agent memory, local speech recognition, local models, latency and cost measurement
Engineering
JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Canvas 2D, PHP, SQLite, Python, service workers / PWA, payments (PayPal server-side verification), Windows desktop apps, MSIX packaging, automated testing
Creative
Creative direction, art direction, brand identity, campaign and social content, short-form video, photography and retouching

Experience

AI Product Engineer & Lead Developer

Vonfal AI · own product studio · New York / remote

Aug 2025 – Present

  • Design, engineer and ship products solo with an agent system I built, from concept and interface to payments, hosting and store submission.
  • Mars Deck (marsdeck.net): live solar-system map computed in the browser, 6,205 real bodies, zero network calls to draw; AI assistant grounded in computed positions so it cannot state an unverified number; 808 automated checks.
  • WREN (wren.vonfal.ai): private push-to-talk dictation for Windows that runs entirely on-device; replaced a 696 ms language-model clean-up step with a 0.063 ms rules pass; packaged as MSIX and published in the Microsoft Store (Oct 2026).
  • EchoBorn (echoborn.net): community platform with its own computed game-cycle engines and live paid checkout.
  • EchoHex: modular PHP/SQLite CMS with on-page editor and self-updater, running behind several live sites.

Creative Director

Safehouse Lab · New York

Sep 2018 – Present

  • Creative direction, brand and design systems for an independent media and design lab; VR and AR research, live-streaming production and web builds.

Senior Product Designer (contract)

NowThis News · New York

Sep 2015 – May 2016

  • Designed layout systems for vertical, square and wide video built for sound-off mobile viewing: captions, overlays and type.
  • Designed a playlist format that cut a 20-minute interview with Vice President Joe Biden into eight standalone, shareable clips.
  • Delivered a cross-platform channel rebrand and prototyped a gesture-based news app, including format-aware sharing.

Senior User Interface Designer (contract)

American Express · New York

Aug 2015 – Oct 2015

  • Made the card ordering process responsive for mobile, working with UX research and contributing to UI design systems.

Creative Director (contract)

Tigerspike · New York

May 2014 – Oct 2015

  • Improved UX and UI workflows within the UX department for enterprise clients including American Express and IHS Markit.

Senior Product Designer (contract)

IHS Markit · New York

Jul 2014 – Dec 2014

  • Designed responsive layouts for data-dense engineering software used in defense and aviation.

Muse Template Developer

Adobe Muse ecosystem · ThemeCloud · New York

2013 – 2017

  • Designed and built themes and widgets for Adobe Muse, plus a membership with hosting and a customer CMS; wound down when Adobe discontinued Muse.

Art Director (contract)

Red Bull · New York

Jan 2012 – Sep 2013

  • Art direction for Red Bull Stratos event marketing, branding guidelines for the New York Red Bulls, and a responsive redesign of the World Rally Championship website with the Red Bull online team.

UX/CX E-commerce Consultant (contract)

Riedel, the wine glass company

Jun 2012 – Nov 2012

  • Customer and user research for the online shop; contributed to the redesign of riedel.com.

UX Research Scientist (contract)

Spotify · New York

Jul 2011 – Sep 2011

  • Member of the UX and UI research team for Spotify's first iPad app.

UX & Social Media Consultant (contract)

Havas Life · Calidris 28 · New York

Jul 2011 – Mar 2012

  • Senior UX consulting for Havas Life (Jul–Nov 2011); social media, advertising and a B2B dropshipping strategy for Calidris 28's US launch (Jul 2011 – Mar 2012).

Art Director & Senior Partner

20th Street Media · New York

Jul 2009 – Sep 2011

  • Moved local businesses and brands onto modern web and social platforms; clients included McCann, BMW and Justin Timberlake.

Earlier

2002 – 2009

  • Digital Art Director & Partner, Project 35 Inc. (2008–09) · Social Media Strategist, Obama for America (2007–09) · Visual Designer, Frank The Plumber (2007–08).
  • Fashion model in Miami, Hamburg, Tokyo and Milan (2002–09): years on set with photographers and creative teams that shaped my eye for image and brand.

Education

Communication Design (coursework)

Design Factory International · Hamburg