Nate Girard

Nate Girard

I’m a Creative Technologist

With a background in UX Design, 3D, and Web Development
"I’m effective at bringing product vision to reality with cross-functional teams of experts by communicating efficiently at every level of engagement and following through to achieve outstanding results."
"I’m passionate about creating innovative tools to democratize 3D skills and knowledge, and I’m always looking for new ways to leverage technology to improve the human experience."

Case Studies

Hydrogen
Factory
Aufero

Demo Reel

Experience

Years of experience in broad categories

Traditional Art
34 yrs
Digital Art
30 yrs
Graphic Design
29 yrs
Computer Programming
29 yrs
3D
26 yrs
Video Production
25 yrs
Web Design
23 yrs
E-Learning
22 yrs
Visual Effects
21 yrs
UX Design
19 yrs
Spatial Design
8 yrs
AI
3 yrs

Proficiencies

Software, tools, and languages I use

Design
Figma
Dribbble
Behance
Autodesk
Autodesk Maya
Blender
Procreate
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Premiere
Adobe After Effects
Adobe InDesign
Adobe XD
Adobe Dimension
Adobe Aero
Adobe Animate
Adobe Stock
Adobe Photoshop Express
Adobe Acrobat
Development
Visual Studio
IntelliJ
Sublime Text
Git
GitHub
BitBucket
CSS 3
HTML 5
Javascript
React
NodeJS
NPM
Amazon
CodePen
JQuery
C#
C++
PHP
Joomla
Wordpress
Productivity
Google Drive
Gmail
Google Calendar
Google Docs
Google Maps
Atlassian
Confluence
Jira
Mail Chimp
Dropbox
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Word
Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Powerpoint
Evernote
Zendesk
Notion
Miro
Scrivener
AI Tools
ChatGPT
Microsoft Copilot
Github Copilot
Stability AI
MidJourney
Leonardo AI
GenCraft
KREA
CSM
Luma AI
Gaming & Spatial Platforms
Unity
Unreal
Roblox
Meta
Vive
ZapWorks
Steam
Messangers & Conferencing
Microsoft Teams
Slack
Microsoft Skype
Zoom
Discord
Google Meet
Operating Systems
Ubuntu
Apple OS
Microsoft Windows
Android
iOS
MacOS

Skills

Explore the extensive range of skills and expertise I bring to the table, across various domains including UX, Product Management, Development, Management, and 3D Design.

UX

  • User profiles
  • User stories
  • User flows
  • Journey mapping
  • User interviews
  • User testing
  • User shadowing
  • User analytics research
  • UX Design
  • Wireframing
  • Mockups
  • Storyboarding
  • Prototyping
  • Component libraries
  • Design Documentation
  • Design reviews
  • Design sprints
  • Animation & motion design
  • Interaction design

Product

  • NPS surveys
  • Dashboards
  • Feedback grooming
  • RICE scoring prioritization
  • Sprint Planning
  • Sprint Grooming
  • Daily Standup
  • Sprint Reviews
  • Swarm planning
  • Release planning
  • Release announcements
  • Release tracking
  • Risk assessments
  • Product Roadmap
  • Forecasting timelines
  • Requirements gathering
  • Architectural diagrams
  • Jira management
  • Competitive analysis
  • Competitive research
  • Onboarding guides
  • Help documentation
  • Onboarding videos

Development

  • Frontend web development
  • React development
  • CSS Styling
  • Web3 development
  • AR development
  • VR development
  • Game development
  • Unit testing
  • E2E Testing
  • QA test plan
  • Regression testing
  • Blackbox testing
  • Release certification
  • Peer Reviews

Management

  • One-on-ones
  • Quarterly reviews
  • Interviews
  • Disciplinary reviews
  • Performance reviews
  • Company announcements
  • Leadership check-ins
  • Company retreats
  • Training
  • Intern mentorship
  • Referrals
  • Celebrating accomplishments
  • Remote leisure activities and games
  • Brainstorming sessions
  • Networking
  • Client calls
  • Sales support
  • Demos
  • Presentations
  • Blog posts

3D

  • Modeling
  • UV unwrapping
  • Texturing & Material Shaders
  • Rigging & weighting
  • Lighting
  • Animation & Lipsync
  • Rendering
  • Compositing
  • Rotoscoping & greenscreen
  • Particles
  • Cloth Simulations
  • Physics Simulations
  • Camera tracking
  • Object tracking
  • Motion capture
  • Scanning
  • Decimation
  • Retopology
  • Projection mapping
  • Exporting & Importing

Referrals

Jason Prunty

Jason Prunty

Head of Experience @ SigFig

Nate is a UX hybrid superstar, blending research and interaction design seamlessly. His ability to capture user feedback, distill it into impactful insights, and translate those insights into relatable and easy-to-use interfaces is truly unmatched. His deep sense of empathy drives him to create products that get to the heart of what the user needs.

Andrew Hackman

Andrew Hackman

Lead UX Researcher @ Billtrust

On a day-to-day level, Nate is a great person to work with. He is highly collaborative and enjoys working on projects together. He can give detailed but positive critiques and support work towards an improved solution on issues raised in his own work. He has a great sense of humor and makes even intense work fun.

Demian Kato

Demian Kato

Creative Director | Brand Evangelist | Team Mentor

Nate is truly a talented professional who brings a very broad toolset to every project. His multifaceted ability is paralleled with an extraordinary passion for the interactive industry. Nate truly does his homework and then some, constantly researching the latest trends, developments and technologies, all of which he shares regularly with the community on his blog.

John Nyquist

John Nyquist

iOS Developer

I found that Nate has a strong passion for visual and interactive technology and has a broad array of creative and technical skills and interests to match, from 3D to visual effects to programming. He has strong organizational skills and is conscientious about documentation. Nate does not hesitate to jump into new technology and then share it with team members. He is a very fast learner of technologies, practices, and methodologies.

Alejandro Baltra

Alejandro Baltra

Software Architect @ Billtrust

Whenever I had to work with Nate, I knew it was going to be a great time. His eye for quality is unmatched and his ability to communicate effectively with different stakeholders ensured expectations were set timely and appropriately.

Kim Torres

Kim Torres

Product Design @ Justworks

I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Nate Girard. He’s truly a powerhouse designer that can interpret customer feedback and turn them into innovative, out of the box designs. He’s an incredible well rounded team player who inspires others and provides thoughtful feedback and advice. His work speaks for itself and will forever solidify him as a thought-leader.

Todd Smith

Todd Smith

Customer Success Leader

I have found Nate to be a highly committed and passionate team member with a very high level of interest in learning and developing in evolving technologies such a mobile. He wants to continuously improve and was always very interested in feedback on his projects. His leadership attributes include working through roadblocks creatively, genuinely caring about team cohesiveness and relationships, and long term sustainability of process and product support.

Andrew Gibbons

Andrew Gibbons

President @ ThinkLabs Learning

Nate was also very ambitious, a real go-getter, always doing what needed to be done, and then doing more! Nate provided a constant stream of interesting thoughts and research to help our team move forward. He strengthened our group immensely. It was always a pleasure working with Nate, and I would do so again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Nate to anyone who is looking for a solid team player and skilled developer!

Blog

The Promise of Virtual Assistants

The Promise of Virtual Assistants

Nate Girard | Aug 29, 2024

Imagine a world where your every need is anticipated and met by a digital companion. How close are we to living that science fiction dream? As AI rapidly evolves, virtual assistants are becoming more integral to our daily lives, reshaping the way we work, live, and interact.

READ MORE →

AI as Collaborator not Replacer

AI as a Collaborator, not a Replacer

Nate Girard | Aug 23, 2024

Many artists, writers, musicians and creators have succumbed to the fears that AI is stealing their jobs. On the surface many of these generative AI tools can do in mere moments what would have taken them hours to do themselves at the same quality.

READ MORE →

3D Pipeline Support for VR

THE 3D PIPELINE FOR VR ARTISTS

Nate Girard | Feb 22, 2022

3D asset creation traditionally involves a complicated process we call a Pipeline. To create any VR/AR content, artists must use parts or all of this pipeline.

READ MORE →

AnythingWorld

ANYTHING WORLD — NATURAL LANGUAGE GENERATED 3D ENVIRONMENTS

Nate Girard | Feb 25, 2021

The world of 3D asset creation is evolving more quickly than anyone expected. Open your mind to the possibilities of what an audio-only interface can achieve.

READ MORE →

Run AR

RUN AR — AN AUGMENTED REALITY PROTOTYPE EXPLORATION

Nate Girard | Feb 19, 2021

Augmented reality (AR) has a plethora of use cases just waiting to be explored. I think we all have some ideas of how this technology will shape our daily lives in the near future.

READ MORE →

3D Is Hard

3D IS HARD AND IT SHOULDN'T BE

Nate Girard | Feb 16, 2021

There exists a near future where creating content in 3D is so easy everyone can do it. In some ways, it is a reality today! Let’s look at the industry’s current state; figure out what exists and what doesn’t make 3D content creation easy and accessible to everyone.

READ MORE →

Worklist Polishing

WORKLIST UX FRICTION - POLISHING THE EXPERIENCE

Nate Girard | Feb 19, 2021

As users and designers, we tend to take for granted a few friction points that we think cannot be changed. Whether deemed too difficult or challenging to solve, or oftentimes the business value doesn’t outweigh the cost to build.

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Worklist Assignment

WORKLIST UX FRICTION - WORK ASSIGNMENT

Nate Girard | Dec 22, 2020

Work lists are present in a variety of cloud applications. Let’s do a deep dive and analyze why humans have a difficult time using their work lists as a team and assigning work to team members.

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Worklist Management

WORKLIST UX FRICTION - LIST MANAGEMENT

Nate Girard | Dec 22, 2020

Work lists are present in a variety of cloud applications. Let’s do a deep dive and analyze why humans have a difficult time using their work lists.

READ MORE →

UX EX PX

USER EXPERIENCE = EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE + PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE

Nate Girard | Dec 21, 2020

Humans are best at making decisions based on human judgements and managing human relationships with empathy. Humans are emotional creatures with psychological needs that must also be met in order to succeed and not burn out.

READ MORE →

Contact Me