Ionut Maxim — Designer, strategist & mentor
It usually is. I help founders and small teams work out what's actually wrong, decide what to build next, and design it — at a pace that fits the problem, not the calendar.
on work · 8 min read
Slow clarity
Why some problems get worse the faster you try to solve them, and what it looks like to design at a pace that actually fits the work.
LiveThree.js, GLSL
The settling lattice
“Max is a very unique mentor, one that is not easy to find. He goes beyond what design is and what the industry is expecting us to do as designers. His holistic approach to his craft, and life in general, has been very insightful. It was…”
— Cristina L.
2024 · architecture
Fintech Dashboard
The decision audit
About an hour, alone
mentorship · 7 min read
Mentorship as discipline
Mentorship gets romanticised. The actual practice is closer to a craft: deliberate, structured, and oriented around judgment, not motivation.
LiveFramer Motion
Spring field
Ionut Maxim
Designer, strategist & mentor
“I had a great session with Max. He took the time to learn about me and my concerns. Max gave me some really good suggestions and was really patient. He asked all the right questions and I had some amazing insights. Looking forward to ano…”
— Julia S.
2023 · system
E-Commerce App
The discomfort brief
A page, by hand
on design · 6 min read
Judgment over process
Frameworks are scaffolding. At some point you have to take the scaffolding down and just decide.
LiveWeb Animations API
Cascade
“I had an awesome mentorship session with Max, who is an exceptional role model for anyone looking to grow personally and start a career in UX Design. I especially appreciate that he takes things seriously while also being easygoing, rela…”
— Max H.
2023 · identity
Geometric Brand
The one-sentence brief
Thirty quiet minutes, by hand
career · 5 min read
Small bets on yourself
Career change rarely arrives in a single leap. It is much more often the cumulative result of a long series of small, deliberate bets.
LiveSVG
Subdivision
“Max is a very honest and knowledgeable mentor with a unique method. He goes out of his way to scrap under the surface and to find the deeper issue. He is willing to share his knowledge and gives valuable insights. Essential and effective.”
— Maddalena Z.
2022 · architecture
Healthcare Portal
The team-alignment test
Five minutes per person, one week apart
on design · 7 min read
Designing for trust
Usability gets you a working product. Trust is what makes someone come back, recommend it, or forgive a mistake.
LiveCanvas 2D
Drift
2022 · prototype
Strategic Wireframes
The three-feature audit
A focused hour with the team
on design · 5 min read
Designing for the quiet user
Most products are designed for the loudest user. The quiet majority deserves better.
LiveOGL, GLSL
Flow field
Three user calls, one question each
Three thirty-minute calls in a week
on design · 5 min read
Designing without ego
How to take feedback, kill darlings, and stay attached to the problem instead of the solution.
LiveGSAP
Sequence
on work · 4 min read
Good enough is good enough
A defence of shipping at 80%, and an honest look at the cost of waiting for perfect.
Figma, web
Interface studies
career · 5 min read
On being a junior
What I wish someone had told me in my first three years as a designer.
on work · 4 min read
The one question that changes everything
The single question I keep coming back to when a project stalls, a team disagrees, or a brief feels off.
on design · 4 min read
Your product is not perfect
Why imperfect, useful products beat polished and irrelevant ones, and what to ship even when you would rather wait.
on design · 4 min read
Simplicity is a discipline
Simplicity is not the starting point. It is the result of choosing what not to include, over and over.
Where it usually starts
You are rarely short on effort. More often you are short on a clear read of what's going on — and the noise makes it hard to find on your own.
Mark what sounds like you — 6 common starting points.
That's usually exactly where a useful conversation starts.
The cost of unclear decisions rarely arrives as one visible failure. It arrives as quarters that should have taken you further than they did.
Speed doesn't fix that. Clarity does — and it's cheapest to find early, before much has been built in the wrong direction.
What clients say
Ionut did not just redesign our product. He helped us notice what we had stopped seeing — including about ourselves.
So I work the other way around: understanding before screens, decisions before pixels. When the decision underneath is clear, the design tends to follow almost on its own — and you can explain it to anyone who asks.
2024architecture
Redesigning a legacy institutional trading dashboard into a high-performance, structurally sound experience for modern traders.
2023system
Scaling a headless commerce experience through modular components and a brutalist design system.
2023identity
A complete visual overhaul and digital identity system for an AI research lab, focusing on sharp geometry and extreme typography.
2022architecture
Architecture · 2022
2022prototype
Prototype · 2022
Working together
How the work moves
Not every engagement uses all five steps — but this is the shape, and we only go as far as the problem needs.
01
I find the real problem under the stated one — through your data, your team, and your users.
Most wasted quarters begin by solving the wrong thing quickly.
02
We settle what the product is for, who it's for, and what comes next — in that order.
Design without a decision underneath just makes the confusion prettier.
03
Information architecture, flows, and the structure of the thing — before any visual polish.
A clear structure makes the interface almost obvious.
04
The visual layer — restrained, consistent, and built to be handed to engineers.
Beauty that can't ship is decoration, not design.
05
The rationale and framing your team needs to keep deciding well once I'm gone.
The goal is your independence, not your retainer.
Engagement shapes
Each is a fixed shape with a clear end — not an open-ended retainer. We can always start small.
Half a day
For when you mostly need to think clearly with someone who has seen the shape before.
Start here if you mostly need a clear read, not deliverables.
Two to four weeks
The heart of it: find what's wrong, decide what to build, design it — with the reasoning left behind.
Start here if something's off and you want it found, decided, and designed.
By the month
For teams who want a steady design partner without hiring a full-time lead yet.
Start here if decisions keep landing on your desk and you want a steady counterpart.
Honest answers
Then there's probably something on your mind. A short first email goes a long way — tell me what's going on and what a good outcome would look like. I read every one myself.