Sam Bernhardt
Product & systems designer

Hey 👋, I’m Sam.
I’m currently designing products for educator growth and working on design systems at KickUp.

I’m a technical, interdisciplinary designer that's emphatic about making life easier for others. I care equally about the people who use my products and those that I collaborate with.

I’m constantly looking for ways to empower design and engineering with efficiency, clarity, and scalability in the product development process.

Work
Senior Product Designer at KickUp
Designing products for educator growth. Designing and developing design systems.
UI/UX Designer at Noticed
Designed data-driven ecommerce experiences.
Writing
Redesigning KickUp's Color System
Designing for dev experience, guaranteed contrast, and themability.
Writing a drag and drop sortable list library
Why it's a terrible idea and why you should do it
Static-ish React components
How to use your component library on static HTML pages
Hacks
KickUp Color System Explorer
A gallery of color tokens that uses Leonardo color
Nested sortable list library
A simple library for reordering nested lists
Color alpha converter
Convert alpha and opaque colors
Reading
Expressive Design Systems
by Yesenia Perez-Cruz
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
by Donella Meadows
Listening to
Design Details
A biweekly conversation about design process and culture.
99% Invisible
A weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture.
Metamuse
A podcast about tools for thought, product design & how to have good ideas.
Acquired
A podcast about the latest technology, acquisitions, and IPOs.
Lenny’s Podcast
Lenny Rachitsky interviews world-class product leaders and growth experts.