Collin Olan

I’m a product designer focused on making complex things clearer for people. Say
rift project

rift

2023–Present

rift is a pre-product startup building an AI powered sales intelligence platform.

As the founding designer, I set the vision and built rift’s first end-to-end product experience—defining our design principles and crafting the workflows that guide sales reps through their day.

Medium project

Medium

Design Lead, 2021–2022

Medium is a publishing platform for written content, supported by subscriptions and community rather than ads.

I designed rich multimedia author profiles, clarified subscription states for readers, improved interaction accessibility, helped shape the 2022 product vision, and made key contributions to the design system.

Projector project

Projector

Design Lead, 2019–2021

Projector was a collaborative design tool for turning ideas into flexible, multimedia stories that could be shared anywhere.

I was designer number two, and led design for the platform before and after our public launch. At the end of 2021, Projector was acquired by Medium.

Pinterest project

Pinterest

Design Lead, 2015–2019

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for ideas like recipes, home inspiration, and more.

I led the design of business-facing tools, including a full redesign of the ads manager. That work uncovered opportunities to improve global navigation and the internal design system—two efforts I also went on to lead. Later, I became the design lead for Pinterest’s internal design system team.

Chartbeat project

Chartbeat

Product Designer, 2014–2015

Chartbeat is a content analytics platform that helps publishers grow loyal audiences with real-time and historical insights.

I led the redesign of a real-time dashboard for homepage editors. I also designed a headline testing tool, developed a visual design language and internal standards, and laid the groundwork for a formal design team.

Google project

Google

Designer, 2013–2014

UXA was a small team at Google with a mission to create a unified design language across the company. It later evolved into Material Design.

I helped extend early Material concepts—like digital paper and ink—into platforms like ChromeOS and the web, and designed the internal specifications that guided the system’s early development.