# Travis Smith - Design Leader

> Design leadership, product strategy, and building great teams. 17+ years building products and leading cross-functional design teams at companies like Shopify, Grubhub, and Deel.

Travis Smith is a design leader based in Kansas City. He specializes in product design, design systems, and building high-performing design teams. This site contains his portfolio of work and writing on design leadership.

## About

- [About Travis](/about.md): Background, experience, and approach to design leadership

## Case Studies

- [Marketing Tools Suite - Shopify](/work/shopify.md): Led the design of Shopify's marketing tools suite, enabling merchants to create, manage, and optimize their marketing campaigns directly within the platform.
- [Restaurant Onboarding - Grubhub](/work/grubhub-onboarding.md): Redesigned the restaurant partner onboarding experience, reducing time-to-first-order from 21 days to less than 72 hours with zero internal effort.
- [Driver Mobile App - Grubhub](/work/grubhub-driver.md): Led the redesign of the Grubhub driver mobile application, growing from 1,000 to 60,000+ drivers delivering 40,000+ orders per day.
- [Design Team Leadership - Grubhub](/work/team-management.md): Built and led a design team of 30+ designers, researchers, and content strategists. Developed hiring, growth, and design review processes that doubled team size and tripled tenure.
- [E-commerce Platform - The Tie Bar](/work/tie-bar.md): Led the Product Design and Engineering Team for a $20M+ e-commerce platform, increasing conversion rates by 0.5% overall and double digits for mobile customers.
- [Digital Ecosystem & Asset Manager - Mack Trucks (via VSA Partners)](/work/mack-trucks.md): Designed a comprehensive digital ecosystem for Mack Trucks fleet customers, including an asset management platform for tracking and maintaining commercial vehicles.
- [End-to-End Digital Airport Experience - Chicago Department of Aviation (via VSA Partners)](/work/chicago-aviation.md): Designed the digital experience strategy for Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports, including wayfinding, flight information, and passenger services.
- [E-commerce Platform - PlainSmart](/work/plainsmart.md): Designed and launched the e-commerce platform for PlainSmart, a direct-to-consumer basics brand focused on sustainable, high-quality essentials.

## Writing

- [A new age of design portfolio sites ](/blog/a-new-age-of-design-portfolio-sites.md): I have had my professional website at Fully Operational for almost 15 years. What started as a test to build an HTML website for myself (I failed) turned into a Squarespace site I really only used... (2026-02-10)
- [The double diamond is dead](/blog/the-double-diamond-is-dead.md): For way too long, when designers are asked to show their value, give a case study, or talk about who they are as designers, you get a process diagram, the double diamond, boxes and arrows, a... (2026-02-03)
- [My current Design stack](/blog/my-current-design-stack.md): My number one design tool is pen and paper. This has been going on for about 20 years, with no clear second place. Specifically, Muji Gel Ink 0.5, Black in a Muji Double Ring Lined Notebook. The only... (2026-01-27)
- [New year, same me ](/blog/new-year-same-me.md): I spent the last half os 2025 trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I have luckily landed on the Deel design team, but there are a lot of ideas, thoughts, connections, and new things I... (2026-01-20)

## Shopify Consulting

- [Shopify Expert - Store Setup & Consulting](/shopify.md): Former Head of Design at Shopify. Helps new store owners set up and existing merchants make better use of Shopify Email, Inbox, Forms, and marketing tools. Non-technical, practical guidance.

## Work With Travis

Travis is available for **consulting engagements** and **fractional design leadership** roles. He can help with scaling design teams, establishing design systems, strategic product design, and executive coaching for design leaders.

- **Email:** hello@fully-operational.com
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/travisbsmithux/

## Optional

- [Full Context File](/llms-full.txt): Complete content from all pages for maximum context