Heath Korvola

is a full stack product design leader with more than a decade of creative business experience.

Outside of work you can find him riding bikes, speaking Japanese + dropping Oxford commas with wild abandon.

  • "Heath is your favorite product designer’s favorite product designer."

    Dan, Head of Product

  • “Heath was one of the most tenacious, and curious design leaders I have worked with.”

    Luis, Chief Operating Officer

  • “Heath was one of the most creative designers I’ve ever worked with, and had a lot of fun collaborating with him…”

    Patrick, iOS Lead

Learn a new language, get a new soul.

Czech proverb

This Czech proverb is truth + touches on the power of translation, which is what we do. We all translate everyday - what she said, what he meant, what that pause was about.

My work as a designer is framed around how well I translate - business needs, technical constraints, team concerns all have a place in shaping designs. The key is how one translates them both to each party involved but also into a stunning, efficient outcome.

I find my calling in this translation + thrive in ambiguous problems + multi step solutions. A spin here, a side step there, an outcome to appease all collaborators - shhh, don’t tell anyone, but it’s the translators that rule the world.

Experience

2021-2024 // M1 Chicago, IL (remote)

  • Senior Product Designer II

2020-2021 // Simple Portland, OR

  • Senior Product Designer

2017-2019 // Tribe Pilot Bend, OR (remote)

  • Product Design Director

2016-2020 // Viewpoint Portland, OR

  • UX Designer, Senior UX Designer

About

Education + training

BA Product Design,

University of Oregon

Advancing Innovation,

LUMA Institute

Certified Usability Analyst,

Human Factors International

Demystifying Vision,

Design Department

Heath is a native of Portland, OR who translates stories in product design + visual media. He has more than two decades of experience as a creative professional including work with clients such as Nike, Patagonia, Microsoft + the US Postal Service.

His passion + focus is around mission based work in the fintech sector - whether B2B or B2C, enterprise or startup or something more altogether. Fluent in the nuances of financial design he welcomes cross functional collaboration through the myriad layers of Fraud, Compliance + Legal that make up our financial system.

He has lectured for the Art Institute of Portland + the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, taught at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography + helped kickstart the design/fab firm Ruphus. He was part of a team that won an IDEA Student Gold award + has presented his self fabricated furniture designs at SHOW PDX, an invite only designer showcase that's part of DESIGN WEEK PDX.