Bio
Kyrylo Orlov is a designer, developer, and creative technologist working at the intersection of design and technology, two disciplines he’s always believed are inseparable. Growing up in Brooklyn after emigrating from Ukraine, his curiosity for how things are built led him to start coding from an early age, first through game design and development, and eventually toward a broader obsession with how digital experiences look, feel, and function.
He studied computer science at Hunter College before building a career that has spanned software engineering, creative technology, and design strategy. From founding and leading TechCodes, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering youth through emerging technology education, to working as a security engineer at Amazon, his early path was defined by the belief that technology, at its best, serves people. That conviction eventually drew him toward design engineering, where he found his footing at , a Netherlands-based digital agency, and later at in New York, where he worked as a senior design and software engineer alongside some of the most interesting brands in culture.
Throughout, he has freelanced across industries, helping brands, businesses, and individuals translate identity and narrative into meaningful digital form. In 2024, that work earned him recognition as one of the top emerging voices in web design and an invitation to join the Jury, where he contributes to setting standards for excellence in digital craft.
In 2025, Kyrylo co-founded , a studio built on the belief that great branding and great software aren’t at odds. Together with his co-founder, he continues to grow it into something lasting.
Today, he leads design and engineering at , an early-stage VC-backed startup, where he joined as the first engineering hire and works with the founding team to shape the product from the ground up.
Manifesto
01 I believe the progress of humanity comes from constant innovation. Innovation occurs when new design standards can be beautifully manipulated, guided by our shared cultural experiences.
02 I firmly believe that a strong desire for love drives all innovation in culture and society. Whether it’s the abundance, scarcity, or loss of love, its strong hold on human nature drives us to influence others and the world in unique ways.
03 I believe that design is an extension of nature. Over the past 3.5 billion years, nature has evolved to design efficiently and universally. We can become better designers by mimicking the fundamentals of nature.
04 There’s no nobility in mediocrity. Success drives you towards repetition, and repetition drives you towards immunity. The path you choose is what defines great work, not the outcome of that work.
Awards
Thoughts
— I think the process of sitting down and iterating on a design in a Figma file has to be one of the most rewarding experiences there is. You could sit down with an AI agent and prompt it to work through a design. But, there’s something unmatched about what you learn from spending 8, 12, sometimes 24 hours straight in Figma, trying things, going back a few versions, and figuring out why one direction feels better than another. There’s definitely a place for agentic design, especially in product. With high-concept brand work, I think you still uncover so much of the art direction, character, and personality in the process of actually doing the work.
— A lot of designers trying to incorporate “fun” and “play” into their brand end up coming across as tone-deaf. I recently listened to a talk from a certain AI company that had printed its logo on a sports car and turned it into a social media campaign. During the talk, he used the campaign as an example of how designers can play around and have fun with the things they create. To me, it came across as really tone-deaf. Putting your AI company’s logo on a sports car is not inherently unique, playful, or fun. It felt more like a display of resources than an example of thoughtful play in design.
— Feeling like you can do anything is definitely an irrational thought. Especially in modern society, nobody wakes up one day thinking they can do this. Thinking you can learn and do something that it took someone else years or decades to learn is the right type of toxicity you need to be able to achieve great things, as long as you’re self-aware. If you're self-aware of being delusional, you're delusions are temporary.
— There are two interesting concepts to juggle when it comes to product design. Most startups—and really, most companies right now—are investing heavily in AI. Because AI is the trend, and because AI products are still so new, a lot of companies end up copying one another’s design direction. I think there’s an interesting balance to strike between designing something that is so unique it becomes difficult to use and designing something so familiar that it feels generic. By definition, creating something unique requires creativity, and creativity often means breaking away from consistency, repetition, and established industry standards. At the same time, when you get too creative, you can lose the sense of comfort and familiarity that consistency brings to a user interface. It's important for designers to know how to walk that thin line.
— If you’re not doing anything to progress your knowledge as a designer or an engineer, you’re complacent. Keep up.
