Dunstan Orchard

Product Designer • SF, CA / Remote

I work as a generalist product designer and developer. I’ve spent the last 20 years in this role, contributing to successful design and engineering teams at companies such as Apple, Flickr, Aol, and Quora.

The first part of my career was focused on invention in code and design during a highly individualistic stage of the web. The second on managing and shaping the experience of hugely popular sites as social media took hold. The third has been about maintaining core values and product personality in the face of demands for constant growth.

Today my value is best realized by groups who feel accountable for what they put out into the world, and who prioritize the quality, clarity, and long-term health of their charges.

This quote from Priya Parker is pertinent.

In healthy contexts, if you share a common purpose, ‘troublemakers’…are the ones who are most likely to be part of transformational conversations. And that’s because as a troublemaker, you’re willing to poke and prod and you’re not afraid of a little heat. But as a smoother-over, you’re also interested in repair and coming together.

—Priya Parker, Freakonomics podcast

I am both a troublemaker and a smoother-over. My best projects have come from healthy conflicts, but my best work has only been possible because of healthy relationships.

My work

Not everything I do translates very well to portfolio examples, so please let me know if you’d like to discuss aspects of my work not shown below.

Personal projects

My spare time is filled with experiments in wood working, sewing, tool restoration, coding, design, and 3D graphics. I also have a long-term electric car build on the go. Here are a few projects I’ve finished and documented on my blog.