Design partner to venture backed startups

We embed a design lead and senior designer, who've done it before for YC and a16z-backed startups, directly into your team and show you a first MVP design in 10 days

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Phoenix — Branding

Trenli

UX Design

Trenli is a property management tool built for real estate companies to track and oversee their entire building portfolio. We designed an intuitive user experience that brings occupancy, maintenance, and lease data into one unified view.

Ribbit

Ribbit AI

UX Design

Ribbit AI is a consumer investing tool that makes it easy to understand your stock portfolio at a glance. An AI layer surfaces personalized recommendations so you always know what to act on next.

Cayda

Freedom HR

UX Design

Freedom HR is a free, all-in-one HR platform that helps companies manage their people, payroll, and operations without the cost of enterprise software. We designed a clean, approachable experience that makes complex HR workflows feel simple.

Drift — UX

Quill

UX Design

Quill is an enterprise productivity tool that learns your company's context to automatically assign tasks and track action items from meetings. We designed an experience that keeps teams aligned without the manual overhead of traditional project management.

Freedom

Cayda

UX Design

Cayda is an operating system for real estate developers that surfaces construction risks before they become costly problems. We designed a centralized experience that gives teams clear visibility into project health, timelines, and financial exposure.

Luna — UX

Luna

UX Design

Luna is an AI fitness assistant designed specifically for women, tailoring workout and wellness recommendations to their cycle and unique body requirements. We designed an experience that feels personal and empowering, adapting in real time as the body changes throughout the month.

Why Patina?

We are a product design studio with designers who previously worked at NVIDIA, Google and were founding designers at $700M+ startups. Patina has worked with companies backed by investors including YCombinator, a16z, South Park Commons, 10VC and other leading funds.

Trusted by leading startups

How we work

Your Design Team
Every engagement is led by a design lead with experience as a founding designer and a senior designer. We embed into your team by owning design, joining Slack, sending async updates, and running feedback sessions once a week.
User Research
Before touching visuals, we dig into your user interviews, business model, and competitive landscape to understand where friction lives and what a truly seamless experience looks like.
Prototypes
We build interactive prototypes to validate flows and communicate intent clearly before engineering picks it up. Every interaction is considered so the experience feels seamless.
User Tests
We test designs with real users before anything gets built — we identify where people hesitate, get confused, or drop off, and refine until the experience is genuinely frictionless.
Design systems
We create and manage a scalable design system, making it easy for your engineering team to ship on brand. Teams get value from this beyond our engagement.

Let's create a beautiful
experience for your customers.

Let's Chat