Nearly 30 Years of UX/UI and Branding Excellence

Matt Walker is a Senior Product, Interaction, and Logo Designer with nearly 30 years of experience delivering award-winning design solutions that prioritize functionality, usability, and visual impact across media, education, and retail industries. Renowned for his expertise in creative systems, user experience, and in-house design strategy, Matt has earned accolades including a 2013 Webby Award for ESPN Fantasy Sports and a 1998 National Corporate Identity Award for the Zamboni logo. As co-founder of Cyberretail.com, he drove early e-commerce functionality, setting scalable design standards for seamless user experiences. His career includes transformative contributions to brands like ESPN, Yale University, NBC Sports, Waterford, and Cartoon Network, showcasing his ability to simplify complexity and enhance user engagement.

Most recently, from March 2024 to March 2025, Matt served as Senior Designer – Logo & Brand Creative Systems at ESPN. He built an asset system in one year, reducing redundancies and saving costs for 50 million users. Matt pioneered AI workflows to improve scalability, ensuring brand consistency across platforms with cross-functional teams, and expanded ESPN’s brand asset solution to accelerate graphic access, enhancing user experience.

As Digital Experience Design Lead at Yale University Library (2019–2021), Matt directed UX/UI design for the library’s website, improving readability and navigation for 15,000 daily users through mobile-first design and typography. At NumberFire (2017), acquired by FanDuel, he shaped the visual identity and UX/UI for the RotoWorld rebrand at NBC Sports, enhancing engagement on mobile and desktop platforms. As Senior UX/UI Designer at Sports Illustrated (2015–2017), Matt led the SI.com redesign and designed the Swimsuit app, earning acclaim for cohesive branding and responsive design.

From 2005 to 2014, Matt served as Creative Lead for ESPN’s Fantasy Sports, driving its rise to the top global fantasy gaming product. His innovative UX/UI design, including the ESPN Fantasy Football iPad app, won the 2013 Webby Award for Best Game (Tablet & All Other Devices). His integration of social media and gamification expanded the platform’s mobile reach. Earlier, as Co-founder and Creative Director of Cyberretail.com (1999–2000), Matt shaped its brand identity and set digital imaging standards for early e-commerce. At Fry Multimedia (2000–2002), he designed award-winning e-commerce sites for brands like Waterford and Ragú, earning Web Marketing Association Standard of Excellence awards. As Senior Designer at Yoe Studio, Matt created logos for Cartoon Network and Zamboni, the latter earning a 1998 National Corporate Identity Award.

Matt’s work extends to collaborating with major sports entities like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Orlando Magic, as well as athletes such as Marshall Faulk, CC Sabathia, and Albert Pujols. His leadership, mentorship, and expertise in tools like Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, and Sketch have consistently delivered scalable, user-first design systems.

Design Manifesto: Problem-Solving Through Simplicity

For nearly three decades, Matt has designed with a singular truth: great design solves problems. His philosophy is cerebral, strategic, and relentlessly simple, transforming complexity into clarity across websites, logos, sports graphics, and enterprise-scale product systems. As a product designer, Matt tames sprawling systems, crafting intuitive platforms with unified sub-brands that feel distinct yet cohesive. Navigation, to him, is a brand’s handshake—concise, typically five to seven items tailored to each project, guiding users to the core mission without clutter.

Aesthetics in Matt’s work serve purpose, not ego. He prioritizes typography, hierarchy, and minimalism, eschewing decorative fluff for bold, user-first solutions. Every design is deliberate, rooted in context—whether a logo that scales from stamp to billboard or a system that feels like a single, clear path. Matt’s process is collaborative and educational: he mentors young designers to strip away noise and deliver impactful solutions, while guiding clients to understand the “why” behind each choice, aligning their vision with strategic outcomes.

Matt’s work is problem-solving made tangible, driven by simplicity, strategy, and an unwavering focus on the user’s needs. His passion lies in architecting effective product and experience strategies, applying analytical and creative thinking to ideation, evaluation, and end-to-end design execution.