I'm a designer who exists in two worlds. During work hours, I'm deep in Figma tokens and CSS architecture. After work, you'll find me at my easel with oil paint under my nails, completely ignoring grids.This contradiction is the point. The best design systems balance logic and intuition. Structure enables creativity. I've learned this from bouncing between spreadsheets and canvases my entire life.
The Systems Thinker
I fell into design systems accidentally. I was hired to make things 'look better,' but couldn't stop noticing deeper problems: 40 shades of gray with no naming. Three component libraries fighting each other.So I made a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet became a token system that cut white-label client onboarding from three weeks to two days.I love this work because it's a puzzle. How do you build a system flexible enough for four client brands but rigid enough that buttons stay consistent? The analytical part of my brain lights up debugging CSS. I genuinely enjoy writing code. I know that's weird.
The Painter
Outside design systems, I paint. Actual oil paint on canvas. I've been in exhibitions, I sell my work, I spend weekends at art markets. Painting taught me everything about color that design school didn't. You learn color by mixing titanium white into ultramarine blue and watching it shift in real time. This is why my design systems don't feel sterile. I know when to break the grid, when a color needs to be 3% warmer even if it's off-token. The best design work lives at the intersection: structured enough to scale, human enough to feel alive.
Life Outside Work
I have two kids - my favorite chaos agents. When I get alone time, I'm either on my yoga mat, filming Instagram Reels (yes, I'm addicted to likes), or at comedy shows and board game nights meeting new people.I'm based in Tel Aviv, surrounded by startups, strong coffee, and people with opinions about everything. It's perfect.
Why Hire Me
If you need someone who can build scalable design systems that feel human, write production CSS and explain decisions to stakeholders, think systematically about tokens and know when to trust intuition - let's talk.I'm not interested in being 'just a designer' or 'just a developer.' The interesting problems live in the overlap. That's where I work.
Tatiana has a rare ability to take complex system design ideas and simplify them into clean, intuitive solutions that are easy to implement
- Joshua Rubin, Front End Lead at Fluent Trade