James DiStefano, Principal Experience Architect
I design systems that make experiences possible.
Not screens; the logic that makes screens matter.
Thesis
You can feel when a product has a system underneath it. The features cohere. The content compounds. The interface expresses the logic instead of fighting it.
Most products don't have this. Interfaces layered over ad-hoc decisions. They look better; they don't differentiate.
The work that differentiates rarely has an owner. I'm accountable for it.
Case Studies
My Current Work I'm under NDA. So this isn't a case study. It's a thesis about the design problem nobody owns. Start here
Drip
Open rates. Click rates. Revenue attributed. Unsubscribes. Every platform shows what already happened. None tell you what to do next.
Southern Company Gas
Five brands. Four regional utilities. One parent company. Every update multiplied by five. Author once, publish everywhere.
Mad Branch Studio
186 provenance-tracked files. 9 blockchain anchors. 18 MCP tools. 26 sculptures. One person.
Most interesting
Grammarly
Grammarly owned writing. Nobody owned reading. In 2022, I designed the AI that would.
Selected Past Work
Mailchimp
Customers knew how to click Send. They didn't know why. Or what to say. Or who to say it to. Marketing was a black box.
Super Deluxe
A 1-to-5 A.M. slot nobody wanted. Four people. Original comedy to cultural phenomenon to broadcast television. Turner's first network without a cable channel.
Rock Hall
"Create a dialogue around stories told from our perspective of authority." One line; every decision flowed from it. Store traffic up 13,000%.
The beginning