About
hi@cortes.us
I'm a Hispanic creative originally from Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and grew up in Davie, Florida. I moved to Nashville for college to study music business, and believe it or not, I originally wanted to be a rap producer. Instead, I graduated with a degree in graphic design, and I've been designing ever since.
I currently work at Aboon. Before that, I spent time at Instagram on the Growth Web team, and before that I was Head of Design at Northstar, leading design and building out the team.
I've been designing products for 12+ years now, both as an individual contributor and in design leadership, with a particular strength in holistic, cross-departmental product thinking. I specialize in product design for web and mobile and thrive in 0 → 1 work, drawing on expertise in design leadership, visual design, user experience, and design systems, plus a background in engineering focused on React, Typescript, CSS architecture, and component systems. Along the way I've worked at design agencies, and in-house at companies big and small, helping scale companies and ship products used by millions of people.
I'm currently available for freelance design roles for early stage startups, and for sound and music design projects for games, apps, podcasts, and films.
Outside of work, I build the game journaling app GamePal, restore and mod old game consoles, and take photos. I also make music as Cordio and Horizon Radar, scoring tracks for films, shows, and podcasts along the way. I've released 11 albums under the Cordio name so far, with 2 more in the works. Listen anywhere you stream music, or supprt me directly on my Bandcamp. Over the years I've also put out 250+ videos and 100+ articles on design, code, product, music, and whatever else I'm into at the time.
More than anything, I care about people. Empathy, transparency, vulnerability, and trust matter most to me. I think of myself as a generalist, and at the end of the day, I just want to make things that help others.
/ Services
Design Consulting
Advising for startups around building design teams, design systems, 0 → 1 strategy, and visual design feedback
Custom Music & Sound Design
Sound design and music for video games and apps. Also available for custom music projects for podcasts, events, and films.
Product Validation & Process
Contract role to assist and direct product validation efforts through user testing and process implementation
Sponsored Partnerships
Partnerships on videos, education, and content on my social outlets if our audiences overlap
/ Select Clients
Where I've Worked
What Others Say
See more on LinkedInDennis was one of the most humble and pleasant designers I worked with. His work speaks for itself. He's a systems thinker, capable of understanding the problem with a holistic view and arriving at a range of creative solutions for the best product experience. Excellent speaker, great communicator, and above all, a compassionate human with a heart of gold. 10/10 would work together again in a heartbeat.
Working with Dennis on the Carrier app has been awesome. Specifically, he's incredibly available and responsive to unexpected issues. He also asks great clarifying questions to get at the heart of the matter. Dennis gets to solutions/judgments very quickly, even on the crunchiest of topics. He's incredibly flexible and quickly embraces the best idea that emerges with fast follow-up actions; and he's willing to say "no" to bad ideas.
Dennis is an incredible designer, one of the best I have ever worked with in my whole career. He's on top of the design system, hyper-organized, and can push visual designs to world-class standard. Dennis is open to feedback and never takes it personally which is one of the most important qualities as a designer. He's great at facilitating and leading conversations in meetings especially when topics become technical. Dennis checks in with his team members often and tries to help out if we are blocked by something. He brings his true self to the workspace which helps us open up to him too.
Dennis was an absolute pleasure to work with at Mothership. As an engineer developing the company's web-based dashboard, I quickly discovered that - in addition to being an excellent designer - Dennis is a great communicator who understands the technical challenges that his coworkers deal with and takes them in stride. That, I think, is part of his greatest strength: a breadth of competence that extends past his core responsibilities and into all of the miscellaneous odds and ends that come up when you're wearing many hats at a startup. I feel it's also worth mentioning that he makes the chillest music and has a highly-refined palette for coffee. Ask him about both if you get the chance.
I worked with Dennis for 6 months under his leadership. It was the most outstanding mentorship I've received throughout my professional career. Dennis is a natural leader with incredible design experience. He is always on top of the trends, but beyond that he is strategic, collaborative, imaginative, and focused. He has a special talent for architecting incredibly complex design systems that are highly scalable and easy to use. On top of exceeding my every expectation at work, he is one of the kindest and most empathetic human beings I've ever met. It was an absolute honor to work with Dennis and to grow so much as a designer during our time together.
We worked with Dennis on a small but important project for the Fanimal website. It was immediately clear that he is a tremendously talented designer, and he was able to deliver far above expectations within the budget & time allotted. We are excited to work with Dennis again as soon possible!
Dennis is a rare breed – a design leader with strength in both the big picture and nailing all the tiny details that make a product truly exceptional. His passion, skill, and velocity make him a pleasure to work with. I managed Dennis where he led and grew our design team with dedication and empathy. He shipped massive projects quickly, often starting with ambiguous goal posts and limited resources. Dennis was always quick to help anyone in every part of our company. To name a few examples, he’d be a prompt and amazing collaborator for a sales deck, strategic product planning, metrics goal setting session, and would jump in to help on anything that the company needed like recruiting efforts across the company. He was very receptive to feedback and driven to always be improving and learning. He brought that always-leveling-up mindset to the whole company by continuously improving our processes, conciously sharing his knowledge, and bringing new tools and strategies. Dennis was a driving force behind the best parts of our company culture by consciously creating room for feedback, collaboration, trust and joy! I loved crafting our product and company with Dennis as he artfully balanced our company goals, user needs, and resources as such a thoughtful, kind, skillful and productive human.
Dennis is a incredible designer and I would not hesitate to work with him again. He is very organized and methodical, and his design files are easy to follow and are a great example of his clear communication style. He took loose design language and matured it into a rigorous design system, and iterated on designs that solved complex financial planning challenges from first principles and in an intuitive way. He incorporate perspectives from multiple parts of the business, and drives projects forward in ambiguous spaces. And most of all, he is a good and empathetic person.