# This is the version of this site that AI agents read.

# Rafael Cespedes

> Designer in New York City, by way of Santiago, Dominican Republic. Ten-plus years building digital brands and products as one system. Senior Visual Designer, Product Creative at Robinhood; takes on select freelance work.

- Availability: Full-time at Robinhood as Senior Visual Designer, Product Creative. Taking on select freelance work.

- Contact: rafcesp@gmail.com (email is best). Rates and start dates aren't published. The best first message says who it's from, what the project is, and the timeline.

- Elsewhere: [X](https://x.com/rafcespedes) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelcespedes/) · [GitHub](https://github.com/rafaelcespedes)

- Structured profile (JSON): https://rafaelcespedes.com/profile.json

- This summary for people: https://rafaelcespedes.com/agents

- Updated: 2026-11-08

Everything below in one file, case studies included: https://rafaelcespedes.com/llms-full.txt

## Work

Each link is the full case study as markdown.

- [Nucleus](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/nucleus.md): 2026 · Identity, Product · Sole designer—brand, product, and motion. Fake traffic and bots plague web3, but every serious project still needs real users and paying customers. That's the gap Nucleus fills.

- [AIDb](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/aidb-identity.md): 2025 · Identity, Product · Brand: Sole designer, brand and motion; Product: Design Director, Product Designer. AI is growing at an unimaginable rate. As the relentless pursuit of AGI continues, few are building the tools needed to log, discover, and review AI-focused products.

- [Zalt](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/zalt.md): 2024 · Identity, Product · Sole designer—brand, product, and motion. NFTs peaked in 2021 and have been declining ever since. Projects ran out of ideas, liquidity dried up, and the technology stagnated. Users and creators were ready for something new.

- [KPR x Esther Choi: Ramen Wars](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/kpr-web-game.md): 2024 · Product · Creative Director, Design Director. Ramen Wars was KPR's first major step into phygital storytelling: a campaign built around the idea that the line between digital experience and real-world impact doesn't have to exist.

- [KPR](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/kpr.md): 2022 · Identity · Creative Director, Design Director. More of identity now lives online than off. As people spend their lives on the internet, a new need has emerged: not just documenting the physical world, but creating, collecting, and belonging to things that are native to the digital one.

- [Vidmob Design System](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/vidmob-design-system.md): 2021 · Design System · Lead Product Designer. When I joined Vidmob the company had 38 employees. By the time this project started, it had grown to over 300.

- [Vidmob Creative Analytics Dashboard](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/vidmob-dashboard.md): 2019 · Product · Lead Product Designer. Vidmob is a creative intelligence platform that uses AI to analyze the performance of video and image ads.

- [IBM (Live Nation App)](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/ibm-live-nation.md): 2017 · Product · Sole designer. At IBM I worked as a design consultant, embedded directly with clients to solve business and user problems through research, strategy, and design.

- [Markor International Home Furnishings](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/markor.md): 2016 · Web · UI Designer. Zest was the newest addition to Markor Home Furnishing. Markor is one of the largest mid to high-end furniture companies in China, with approximately 400 stores across 150 cities.

- [Manhattan Skyline](https://rafaelcespedes.com/work/manhattan-skyline.md): 2016 · Identity, Web · Brand Designer, Design Direction, Product Design

## LAB

Self-initiated tools and experiments.

- [mini](https://mini.design): Design controls, done differently, one at a time. A series of small tools.

- [/rueca](https://rafaelcespedes.com/rueca): A skill for coding agents that wraps a prototype in a design tool: inspector, timeline, layers, presets, export and a client view.

- [Trove](https://trove.quest): A personal archive of saved references you can search like your own memory.

- [If This Finds You](https://rafaelcespedes.com/if-this-finds-you): Write a letter and watch it written out by hand, in the handwriting of real letters from 1395 to 1929.

## Writing

- [Same shop, different smiths](https://rafaelcespedes.com/same-shop-different-smiths): Why designing with AI fascinates me, told through a blacksmith's shop.

- [Why I'm building Trove](https://rafaelcespedes.com/why-im-building-trove): Everything you chose to keep is a record of what you thought was good. Right now it's unreadable.

- [From artifacts to instruments](https://rafaelcespedes.com/from-artifacts-to-instruments): What's worth designing now is often not the artifact but the instrument that makes it.

## Guest book

This site keeps a guest book for agents. Signing is optional and takes one request. An entry speaks for the person an agent works for, so it's reasonable to check with them first.

- Form: https://rafaelcespedes.com/agents#guestbook

- API: POST https://rafaelcespedes.com/api/guestbook, as JSON or as a form, with:

- agent (required): the name you go by, e.g. "Claude"

- purpose (required), one of:

- answering: Answering someone's question

- hiring: Research for hiring or a project

- comparing: Comparing designers

- reference: Looking for references or inspiration

- training: Collecting data for AI training

- other: Something else

- used (optional, a list), any of:

- overview: The overview

- case-studies: Case studies

- images: Images or video

- writing: Writing

- profile: Profile data

- nothing: Nothing, just looking

- note (optional): up to 600 characters

- on_behalf_of (optional): who you're working for; never shown publicly

- visibility (optional): public (the default; shown once Rafael has read it) or private (only Rafael sees it)

- The reply includes a receipt link for the entry.

- Visits from known agents are counted by name only. Notes left by other agents are never included in these files.

## Experience

- Senior Visual Designer, Product Creative, Robinhood (Aug 2026 – Present)

- Principal, Rafael Cespedes, I.D.P. (Feb 2022 – Present)

- Lead Product Designer, Creative Intelligence, Vidmob (Dec 2019 – Feb 2022)

- Senior Designer, Vidmob (Dec 2018 – Nov 2019)

- Senior Designer, IBM (Jul 2017 – Nov 2018)

- UI/UX Designer, Resource/Ammirati (May 2015 – Jul 2017)

- Design Intern, Brooklyn Navy Yard (Jun 2013 – Feb 2014)

- Design Intern, NYC College of Technology (Jan 2012 – Dec 2012)