# Shawn Sprockett > Head of Design at Brain Co. Formerly Airbnb, Apple, Google, Meta. Senior Adjunct Professor. 2x Patent Author. Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/shawnsprockett Shawn's work has spanned a wide breadth of industries over the last 20 years, from Condé Nast to Google, Apple, and Airbnb. He trained under legendary designers, like Milton Glaser and Stefan Sagmeister. And he's also been a part of big business transformations like IBM's implementation of design-thinking at scale, Airbnb’s rapid growth from 24 designers to a design team of 400+, and Meta's product-minded forays into augmented and virtual reality. 
 Shawn is a senior adjunct professor at the California College of Arts in the graduate Interaction Design program—among the top interaction design programs in the world. He has several patents to his name for novel interaction design and recently co-authored new research with colleagues at Cambridge, Duke, and Vanderbilt universities on value perceptions in AI-made art, which has had implications for branding and positioning AI startups. ## Work Experience ### Head of Design @ Brain Co. Jan 2025 – Present | San Francisco, CA Building the design team of a hypergrowth startup across San Francisco, NYC, and MENA; developing a culture of craft and high velocity with precision; overseeing brand and product design across multiple verticals. ### Founding Designer @ Brain Co. Jan 2024 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco, California, United States Wearing all the hats: creating a brand, designing AI products, building design system tools, and innovating with brilliant engineers. ### Senior Adjunct Professor @ California College of the Arts Jan 2024 – Jan 2026 | San Francisco, CA Promoted to Senior Adjunct in light of my academic research in design and technology, ongoing client work for influential products and brands, and development of new curriculum that prepares students for uncertain futures. ### Adjunct Professor @ California College of the Arts Jan 2020 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, California, United States Shawn is an adjunct professor at the California College of Arts in the graduate Interaction Design program, where he teaches visual design in the Fall and his own class, Futureproof, on creative thinking and speculative design, in the Spring. ### Founding Designer (acq.) @ Serene AI Jan 2024 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco Bay Area Created an AI wellness app (and brand) that was acquired shortly after release in beta. ### Founder @ SSPROCKETT Jan 2006 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco Bay Area For Milton Glaser, I designed labels for Brooklyn Brewery as well as designs for his other clients. For Games for Change, I helped consult on design and research for the Half the Sky game, which enabled players to make in-game micro-donations to charities assisting women in the Global South. Other clients have ranged from Google to Apple, Victoria's Secret to Conde Nast across a spectrum of problems spaces from AI and VR to fashion and retail. ### Design Director, Emergent Experiences @ Godfrey Dadich Partners Jan 2019 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco, California Lead a team of innovative designers and developers to explore new ways of storytelling in AR/VR, AI, and web design. Created award-winning work for Nike, the Museum of Art and Design, National Geographic, and Apple. ### Product Designer, XR @ Meta Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area Defining the Metaverse For Meta, I worked first on a research and development team for the Facebook app, researching and prototyping new features and experiences that would help resolve some of the app’s negative effects. Joining research teams in India, I studied how social media is used in rural communities and how a strong social fabric can combat the potential negatives of a network. Later, on the Oculus and Portal XR research and development team, I helped define a vision for where Meta’s technology might go in the near future. Here I was especially interested in how less automation can inspire stronger connection through devices. When a family has to negotiate their own game rules or organize their own pieces, the idiosyncracies of human connection can transcend an AR/VR interface. ### Instructor @ General Assembly Jan 2015 – Jan 2020 | New York, New York Teach developers, print designers, and entrepreneurs about visual design for products and platforms. Students learn composition, typography, color theory, motion design, and UX basics, as well as how to present and critique design work. ### Product Designer @ Google Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Palo Alto, CA Avoiding AI's Uncanny Valley It’s not everyday you can point to a state law that was created because of your work. But after a new Google Assistant feature I worked on launched at Google I/O in 2018 that’s exactly what happened. For months, I collaborated with AI engineers who were pushing natural language capabilities further and sought the help of futurist designers who could define scenarios in which this assistant might help. The end result was a phone conversation so convincing that California legislature passed new laws (https://martech.org/californias-new-bot-law-forces-companies-to-tell-you-when-youre-interacting-with-a-machine/) requiring all AI to disclose itself as such when making a phone call. ### Art Director @ Apple Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Cupertino, CA Innovation Through Design At Apple, I worked with teams of expert visual communicators: creative directors, 3D animators, production artists, copywriters, UX specialists, and engineers to launch promotional sites and purchasing flows around new products. From briefs to pitches to production, I managed the full gamut of Apple’s design machine and helped inspire new innovations. With other companies, like Condé Nast, I’ve also enjoyed special collaborations with Apple including launching some of the first iPad magazines. ### Design Principal @ Airbnb Jan 2015 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area Designing for Trust As one of the first twenty-five designers at Airbnb, I helped support the creation of one of the most advanced design systems in the industry. The second design principal hired, I lead teams both on the host and guest growth sides of the platforms, guiding regular design sprints and examining how first impressions of the platform (these kinds of photos, those kinds of introductions) impacted sign-up’s and bookings. As the design system came into place, several principals began to look toward how AI might replace certain A/B testing activities as it could combine and optimize much faster, leaving designers to focus on more innovative tasks. ### Product Design Lead @ Yieldmo Ad Format Lab Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | New York, NY A founding member of the Ad Format Lab, I helped Yieldmo (a Google-backed startup) redefine mobile advertising. Our UX-driven approach helped to innovate high-impact, no-frustration experiences for consumers with more effective results for advertisers and publishers. Defined and initiated Ad Builder platform to facilitate greater cooperation between agencies and creatives. ### Product Designer @ IBM Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 Product Design at Scale For IBM, I worked on Smarter Cities where we developed platforms that would assist city managers. One solution was a tool that allowed entrepreneurs, citizens, and city officials to come together to improve land use and encourage local participation in planning projects. Others looked at ways to support citizen science projects and make use of public data. Still other projects examined the role of AI and assistive services within city management tools and even postulated the need for Democratic and Republican algorithms that would be voted on by citizenry. ### Designer @ AchieveGlobal Jan 2009 – Jan 2011 Designed professional training multimedia, including graphic design, interactive design, web design, and video production for Fortune 500 clients. Consulted major companies on learning strategies and UX behind learning courses. Reduced AG's curriculum production costs dramatically by building an in-house video and animation studio. ### Designer @ Florida International University Jan 2006 – Jan 2008 | Miami, FL Redesigned identity for an on-campus charity that spurred huge growth including a budget increase of 300% during a year of cutbacks and expansion of community service sites to become one of the only international student-run programs. ## Education ### MFA in Design + Entrepreneurship School of Visual Arts ### BA in International Relations, Film Studies, Art Florida International University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ssprockett - Portfolio: http://www.ssprockett.com/ --- Source: https://flows.cv/shawnsprockett JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/shawnsprockett/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13