M

About

A Q&A-style post that summarizes my story

Hello

My name is Marco Pacifico. I’m a product designer who lives in Brooklyn.

What are you working on now?

I work at Capsule. I design the workflows and tools used to run its operations.

You’re a designer who can…?

I make tools that help people get things done faster and easier.

As a founding or first designer, I set up foundational pieces like a design system, user research practice, and a design process. I help untangle and fix design debt.

I design for consumers and business users; for responsive web, iOS, and products that live across multiple platforms.

I’m strongest in the following areas:

  1. Learning what to build and why. I can go out and talk to customers, do 1:1 interviews, run user tests, and write surveys. I can use analytics to evaluate designs and tell a story of how our product is being used.

  2. Prototyping and interaction design. I make prototypes at various levels of fidelity, from “Wizard of Oz”-style demos to interactive, code-based prototypes that accept and react to user input.

  3. Thinking in and building systems rather than standalone screens.

What’s your background?

I did engineering in undergrad and business in grad school. My first job was at an agency that built digital products and practiced user-centered design.

After that I started a company where I designed a product used by retailers like Gap and Sur la Table. It was true 0-1 product design that involved doing customer discovery to validate the problem, and iterating through multiple products and business models.

Post-startup, I’ve been part of product teams as the first or lead designer, working alongside founders and executives to make product decisions.

What’s your M.O. as a designer?

I care about asking the right questions to get to the root of a problem. If we can’t answer “why this?” and “how will we know it’s working?” then I’ll help us find answers.

I make and test prototypes because the feedback helps us learn and iterate quickly.

My best decisions are made based on evidence and logic derived from first principles. I’m a fan of using frameworks to describe problems and evaluate options.

I'll sweat “the other 80%” of work needed to ship. That means doing QA and finessing edge cases. It also means helping my team work as a cohesive unit rather than an assembly line. I do this by showing my process and asking for feedback early to build trust, hopping on calls to clarify ambiguity, and building systems that remove friction.

Why did you make this website?

This site is a space where I can do the following:

  1. Publish and practice writing.
  2. Learn to code and apply what I learn.
  3. Tell my story to learn about myself.
  4. Tell my story to connect with likeminded people.

If you’ve read this far and you think we’d get along, feel free to drop me a line. My email is in the footer.

How did you make this website?

I built this site using Next.js, MDX, and Styled Components. I’m using two typefaces by Klim Foundry: United Sans and Untitled Serif. I love all Klim’s work, but I feel a personal connection to the perfectly minimal style of Untitled.