Elite Designers Join Toptal’s Exclusive Freelance Community, Meeting Industry Demand for Highly-Skilled Design Talent.
San Francisco, CA, October 7, 2015 – Toptal, the world’s leading provider of senior freelance software engineering talent, today announced the addition of expert designers to its exclusive global freelance community. Responding to client demand, Toptal will provide clients with the essential digital design talent needed to make their projects come to life. In a rigorous global search, Toptal has vetted and selected designers with a proven history of design excellence across the most in-demand design technologies to ensure the new talent is consistent with Toptal’s high standards.
Toptal designers focus on four critical areas of digital design: User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Visual, and Interaction. Each member of the new community has a background in a wide range of design disciplines, including mobile and web design, branding, advertising, photography, and more.
“Design is at the crossroads of where our clients meet their users, and a great user experience can define the success of your software and even your company,” said Taso Du Val, Toptal Co-Founder and CEO. “We’ve always supported our clients’ achievements through the great quality of people we bring on board for them, and design is no different. It’s been exciting to see the extreme talent of the designers we’ve found, and we know our clients will be delighted by the extent of our new capabilities.”
Toptal’s clients range from startups to blue chip companies, but design requirements have always been a top priority. “Highly skilled and reliable talent is essential for our clients. That’s why they come to us in the first place,” said Breanden Beneschott, Toptal Co-Founder and COO. “While primarily focused on engineering, we’ve provided design support to our clients on an ad hoc basis for years, and the demand for our design capabilities has grown rapidly. We’re thrilled to now reveal our newest community members.”
Since the company was founded in 2010, Toptal has become the leader in offering expert freelance software developers, carefully selecting each freelancer through a thorough process of examinations and interviews. Screening Toptal designers involves a modified, although equally meticulous, methodology of selection.
“Beautiful design work is just one small part of the equation,” said Danielle Reid, Toptal Director of Design. “Of course we look at portfolios, but we also take into consideration how well a designer can communicate, whether they can work under pressure, and if they can produce innovative work over a longer deadline. We listen actively and make sure that our designers offer the complete package to our clients so their expectations are completely met and even exceeded.”
Michael Lawrence is the Director of Marketing for TheStore.com Inc., a Miami-based startup with several web and mobile properties. One of them is Votify ─ a photo-based social voting app scheduled for launch at the end of the year. In order to meet the project deadline, Votify needed a complete overhaul of its UX. Dean Siriščević, a Toptal UX designer based in Split, Croatia, was matched to the job.
“One of the reasons I’m working with Toptal is that I always know I’m going to get really interesting and challenging UX projects with great clients,” said Siriščević. “Votify was one that I really enjoyed. One of the most important things that the app was missing was excitement. Users must be hooked on the flow and the idea from the start, because that’s the only way to convert them into paying customers. After market and target audience research, I did a couple of tests on the voting experience, and based on that I designed a 3D rotating cube as the app’s edge experience. It worked smoothly and seamlessly, and it was fun! As a UX designer, I always find satisfaction when I see a big difference on projects between when I first start on them and seeing what they turn out to be when I finish. For me, I got to work on an app that I think will be very popular, and there is no better reward.”
“Dean blew us away,” said Lawrence. “Dean ranks right up there as one of the top five developers/designers of the hundreds I have worked with in the past. He listened, was totally professional, and came up with this 3D rotating cube design completely on his own. We didn’t even ask for it, and yet it has become the centerpiece of our app and how users engage with it right off the bat. What he produced inspired all of us at Votify, and put us on track for launch and investor funding, which is dependent on us delivering a great product. For our final phase, we’ve hired a Toptal iOS specialist to take Dean’s great work and make Votify the #1 killer app on Google Play a couple of months from now.”
About Toptal
Founded in 2010, Toptal is one the fastest-growing and most innovative companies to emerge from Silicon Valley. With backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Silicon Valley’s famed venture capital firm, Adam D’Angelo, founder of Quora, Ryan Rockefeller, and other investors, Toptal today connects thousands of elite freelance software engineers and designers from around the world to over 2,000 blue chips such as J.P. Morgan and Pfizer, tech companies such as Airbnb and Zendesk, and numerous startups, providing world-class solutions that meet the most complex and challenging requirements. On track to hit an $80,000,000 annual run rate (ARR) in less than five years since its founding, Toptal’s rapid growth is a testament to exploding client demand and the unmatched quality and reliability of the company’s services.
Media Inquiries
Joellen Ferrer
Toptal, LLC
+1 (415) 308-8209
joellen@toptal.com
