{"name":"Frandiego","alternateName":"San Frandiego","url":"https://www.frandiego.com","headline":"I design products where music, culture, and technology meet.","description":"Product designer and creative technologist building tools, systems, and experiences for games, music, AI, and culture.","jobTitle":"Product Designer, Creative Technologist, Entrepreneur","roles":["Product Designer","Creative Technologist","Entrepreneur"],"specialties":["PRODUCT DESIGN","CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY","MUSIC SYSTEMS","AI TOOLS"],"links":{"website":"https://www.frandiego.com","linkedin":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanfrandiego/","instagram":"https://www.instagram.com/sanfrandiego","soundcloud":"https://soundcloud.com/sanfrandiego","resume":"https://www.frandiego.com/resume","email":"mailto:hello@frandiego.com"},"sameAs":["https://www.instagram.com/sanfrandiego","https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanfrandiego/","https://soundcloud.com/sanfrandiego"],"selectedProjects":[{"title":"Epic Games","slug":"epic-games","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/epic-games","headline":"Music as a layer of play.","description":"In 2020 I joined Harmonix — the studio behind Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Three months later, Epic Games acquired us with a vision: an interconnected universe where music isn't background noise, but a core, interactive layer of play. I joined the foundational UX team tasked with bridging those two worlds for hundreds of millions of players.","disciplines":["EPIC GAMES","UX/UI","SIDE MISSIONS"],"meta":{"ROLE":"UX Designer","TEAM":"Harmonix × Epic Games","TIMELINE":"2021 — 2026","PLATFORM":"UEFN · Console · Mobile"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/epic-games/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"Fortnite Festival Main Stage","slug":"fortnite-festival-main-stage","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/fortnite-festival-main-stage","headline":"Rhythm gameplay for Fortnite scale.","description":"Rock Band asked you to come to the genre — a disc, a plastic guitar, a living room cleared for the band. Fortnite Festival Main Stage, built with Harmonix, reversed it: full rhythm gameplay — solo or in a band of four, playing licensed hits and original tracks — dropped inside a game hundreds of millions already own, on whatever they're already holding. The UX problem was never building a rhythm game. It was making one feel native to people who never asked for it.","disciplines":["FORTNITE FESTIVAL MAIN STAGE","UXUI"],"meta":{"ROLE":"UX Designer","TEAM":"Harmonix × Epic Games","TIMELINE":"2022 — 2026","PLATFORM":"PC · Console · Mobile"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/fortnite-main-stage/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"Scaling Music Across the Ecosystem","slug":"fortnite-ecosystem-music","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/fortnite-ecosystem-music","headline":"Music woven into the player loop.","description":"Main Stage is where players go to perform. This work is for everyone else — the hundreds of millions who never queue for a rhythm mode but live inside Fortnite every day. As the platform grew from Battle Royale into a multi-game ecosystem, I worked on weaving music natively into that daily loop — pre-game lobbies, mid-match emotes, the Item Shop — until a single Jam Track could live as gameplay, as expression, and as atmosphere.","disciplines":["SCALING MUSIC ACROSS THE ECOSYSTEM","UXUI"],"meta":{"ROLE":"UX Designer — Ecosystem & Marketplace","TEAM":"Harmonix × Epic Games","TIMELINE":"2023 — 2026","PLATFORM":"Fortnite Ecosystem"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/fortnite-ecosystem-music/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"Fortnite Patchwork","slug":"fortnite-patchwork","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/fortnite-patchwork","headline":"The deep end of music-making, made playable.","description":"Modular synthesizers are the most intimidating instruments in music — walls of cables and knobs that scare off even trained musicians. Patchwork's bet was that the cable is secretly the most game-like thing about them. A suite of music-creation devices in Fortnite Creative and UEFN, it lets creators wire sequencers, synths, and effects into working signal chains — composing original music and binding it to gameplay, so the soundtrack reacts to the match itself.","disciplines":["FORTNITE PATCHWORK","UXUI"],"meta":{"ROLE":"UX Designer","TEAM":"Harmonix × Epic Games","TIMELINE":"2021 — 2024","PLATFORM":"Fortnite Creative · UEFN"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/fortnite-patchwork/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"iZotope","slug":"izotope","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/izotope","headline":"Rethinking the knob for the software era.","description":"When audio moved into software, the hardware came along as decoration — knobs, sliders, and meters drawn on screen because engineers already trusted them. But a drawn knob breaks the physics of the real one: your hand drags in a straight line while the graphic rotates. Redesigning Neutron 3 gave us the room to ask what fifty years of habit had been hiding — what a control looks like when it's designed for how people actually use software.","disciplines":["IZOTOPE","UX/UI","PRODUCT DESIGN"],"meta":{"ROLE":"UX/UI Designer","TEAM":"iZotope","TIMELINE":"2018","PRODUCT":"Neutron 3"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/izotope/01-neutron-overview.webp"},{"title":"iZotope — Creative Systems","slug":"izotope-design","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/izotope-design","headline":"Design that ships without the designer.","description":"iZotope builds intelligent audio tools used by musicians and producers worldwide — and by 2016, demand was outrunning the creative team. I joined as a visual designer during that growth spurt, supporting marketing, brand, and product. The work was twofold: translating machine-learning audio tech into stories creators could feel — and noticing half the design queue shouldn't exist at all.","disciplines":["IZOTOPE","DESIGN SYSTEMS","BRAND"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Visual Designer","TIMELINE":"2016 — 2018","SCOPE":"GTM · Brand · Systems","REACH":"US · Germany · Japan"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/izotope-design/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"SunoLink","slug":"sunolink","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/sunolink","headline":"Generation is instant. The workflow wasn't.","description":"Suno can generate a track in under a minute — getting that track into a session took longer. The friction wasn't the AI; it was everything between the browser and the DAW. SunoLink is the bridge I designed and built solo: a native macOS app paired with a plugin that captures, organizes, and hands off audio, so the momentum never leaves the session.","disciplines":["SUNOLINK","AI MUSIC","DAW WORKFLOWS"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Solo — Design & Build","TIMELINE":"Mar — Apr 2026","PLATFORM":"macOS · VST/AU","STACK":"SwiftUI + JUCE"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/sunolink/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"Infinity Speaker","slug":"infinity-speaker","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/infinity-speaker","headline":"The shape of an echo.","description":"Sound doesn't stop — it reflects, wall to wall, fading until it slips beneath hearing. An infinity mirror does the same with light: reflections receding until the eye gives out. Built with Holt Hill Audio during Artist Evolution Camp, a handcrafted speaker whose mirrored core turns every note into a visible echo.","disciplines":["INFINITY SPEAKER","INDUSTRIAL DESIGN","AUDIO HARDWARE"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Designer & Maker","PARTNER":"Holt Hill Audio","DISCIPLINE":"Industrial Design","MEDIUM":"Wood · Light · Sound"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/infinity/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"Gifted Studios","slug":"gifted-studios","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/gifted-studios","headline":"Inspiration doesn't book two weeks out.","description":"A song idea has a shelf life of hours — and in 2015, booking a studio took days of calls, texts, and waiting. Gifted Studios was my answer: a shared creative space I founded and designed end-to-end as a product. Booking, payments, memberships, even the front door ran self-serve, so the distance from inspiration to the record button was minutes, not days.","disciplines":["GIFTED STUDIOS","UX/UI","SERVICE DESIGN"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Founder & Lead Designer","TIMELINE":"2015 — 2020","PLATFORM":"Studio · Web · Mobile","FOCUS":"Service · Product · Brand"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/gifted-studios/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"HEAT by Gifted","slug":"heat-by-gifted","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/heat-by-gifted","headline":"Bringing people together through riddim and bass.","description":"HEAT started as a music showcase in a friend's café in Lawrence and ended as a sold-out, multi-city series. The growth engine wasn't promotion — it was the room itself: every DJ, artist, and tastemaker on the bill brought their audience with them, years before “influencer marketing” had a name.","disciplines":["HEAT BY GIFTED","EVENTS","CULTURE"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Founder","TIMELINE":"2016 — 2019","SCOPE":"Brand · Curation · Ops","RESULT":"Sold out"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/heat/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"Fresh Empire","slug":"fresh-empire","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/fresh-empire","headline":"Turning event hustle into an automated pipeline.","description":"Fresh Empire was the FDA's first tobacco-prevention campaign built for hip-hop youth, developed with Rescue Agency. As Market Manager I ran community partnerships, social campaigns, and live events — and kept noticing the same thing: our best recruiting happened in the loudest rooms, using the worst possible tool. Pen and paper. So I automated the grind.","disciplines":["FRESH EMPIRE","CAMPAIGN OPS","AUTOMATION"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Market Manager","CLIENT":"Fresh Empire (FDA)","TIMELINE":"2016–2018","FOCUS":"Growth & Automation"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/fresh-empire/00-hero.webp"},{"title":"EBSCO","slug":"ebsco","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/ebsco","headline":"Modernizing the engine without stopping the train.","description":"EBSCO's research platforms sit inside libraries and universities worldwide — used by millions, wired into hundreds of millions in revenue, and impossible to take offline for a redesign. I joined the UX team for the multi-year modernization of its core discovery experience: research, interaction design, prototyping, and the Pecan design system — change made carefully enough that researchers' daily work never broke.","disciplines":["EBSCO","UX","DESIGN SYSTEMS"],"meta":{"ROLE":"UX Designer","TIMELINE":"2018 — 2021","SCOPE":"Research · Product · Systems","REACH":"Global institutions"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/ebsco/01-discovery-platform.webp"},{"title":"Chop Shop","slug":"chop-shop","url":"https://www.frandiego.com/archive/chop-shop","headline":"Breaking genres apart, rebuilding them live.","description":"El Taller means “The Garage” — so we built it a chop shop. A real one strips cars and rebuilds them into something faster; ours did it to music. DJs from different scenes broke genres apart and reassembled them live, night after night, until the café had a second identity.","disciplines":["CHOP SHOP","EVENTS","BRAND IDENTITY"],"meta":{"ROLE":"Founder","VENUE":"El Taller","SCOPE":"Brand · Curation · Ops","FORMAT":"Chopped and Screwed"},"image":"https://www.frandiego.com/work/chop-shop/01-flyer-1.webp"}],"listedWork":[{"title":"Sundays @ El Taller","description":"Curating lowkey Sunday DJ sessions behind the bar at El Taller.","year":"2025","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=944etK_M9p4&t=1s"},{"title":"Motion Mami","description":"Helped shape Motion Mami from the ground up through brand, strategy, and creative direction.","year":"2014 — 2024"},{"title":"Bumble: \"50 for 50\"","description":"Sound design for Motion Mami’s animation — Bumble’s Title IX campaign celebrating 50 women athletes and equal-pay NIL deals.","year":"2022","url":"https://motionmami.com/bumble"},{"title":"Hulu IDs: \"Con Sabor\"","description":"Sound design for Motion Mami — a 15s animated ident for Hulu’s IDs initiative.","year":"2022","url":"https://motionmami.com/hulu"},{"title":"20 Units","description":"Helped scale a family real estate portfolio to 20 apartments in under two years — acquisition through management.","year":"2020 — 2022"},{"title":"Treat Yourself","description":"A night built around one idea — treat yourself. Good music and good people at Good Life Bar in Boston.","year":"2021"},{"title":"Motion at Vanderbilt","description":"A residency at Vanderbilt in Boston, built to get people out of their heads and onto the floor.","year":"2018 — 2020"},{"title":"Brick by Brick","description":"Closed on our first multi-family properties the same day, kicking off our real estate investment journey.","year":"2019"},{"title":"General Assembly","description":"Built a foundation in end-to-end UX and product design.","year":"2018"}],"earlierRoles":["Lawrence CommunityWorks — Movement City Youth Program","Change The Play","NSBE — National Society of Black Engineers","Blink Music","Bristol Studios"]}