Axel
Johnston
A cognitive science engineer by training, Axel has spent 16 years turning the way people think into the way products work — across UX, service design, and DesignOps.
Twelve of those years leading: design teams of up to forty, inside global organizations, design agencies, and fast-growing startups. His job is to build the structure that lets good design scale — and last.
His range is rare. Video games, military cockpits, B2E platforms, B2B SaaS, B2C mobile apps, five-billion-revenue websites, space and satellites, even music festivals — he has designed across them all.
Different industries, one constant: read the people as closely as the systems, then transform both.
[Past clients]
[Biggest successes]
200 million users
Axel has designed interfaces used by 200 million people.
500+ mentorees
He has trained 500+ people to become UX designers over the past 10 years.
900 wireframes for one page
He once produced 900 wireframes for a single page — the product-list page of a five-billion-revenue site.
[Soft skills]
[Testimonials]
Trusted by the most innovative teams.
Proof over promises.
Axel is at the top of the league in UX and design professionals. He has a complete skill-set and a reassuring presence. He is very astute in understanding complex problems and extremely articulate in explaining methodology and the value of design to various stakeholders. Axel inspires confidence with his natural leadership qualities and is highly respected as a design leader who helps teams mature in their practice. He is also humble, kind, pragmatic and a real pleasure to work with.
Axel has been the most human, dedicated and skilled manager I have ever had. He managed to develop a sense of trust within and outside our design team. He always found time to bring his valuable expertise to help us out when needed. He could, with an unsettling ease, help us find a solution to our problems. You can trust him blindly.
Axel taught me about user experience during a 6-month course dedicated to this subject at the Digital Campus school in Bordeaux. He has good pedagogical skills; his energy, passion and involvement in transmitting the fundamentals of UX played a key role in the rest of my career. I also did an internship at his agency and I am very grateful for the knowledge sharing I received, which goes far beyond mere theoretical input. Axel put me on the right track to 'think' the discipline from a higher perspective, to ask myself the right questions in order to select relevant methodologies for each project.
Axel is an extremely astute, capable and focused professional. His grasp of ideas, understanding of complex concepts, as well as sense of innovation place him in a very elite group of professionals. He is also kind, aware and a great team player.
[Projects]
- France TVCulture, MediasComing soon
- CdiscountRetail & E-commerceComing soon
- Air FranceTravel, AviationComing soon
- GlooTechnologyComing soon
- CarrefourRetail & E-commerceView