Craig's Story

Since receiving his BFA in graphic design from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2004, Craig Maher has worked on a diverse range of projects across enterprise SaaS, AI, mobile, and web. He became internationally recognized by receiving several Graphis Gold Awards for his design work over the last decade. A scholar at heart, he continues to master his design and technical skills by immersing himself in certified continuing educational programs, including NN/g, General Assembly in New York City, and Interaction Design Foundation online.

Most recently, Craig completed the UX for AI Certified Professional program with Greg Nudelman — an internationally recognized UX thought leader and author who has designed software used by millions of people worldwide. The program covered RAG, Agentic Application Design, and Vibe Coding, and challenged him to build a real AI product, not just study concepts. That project became OrchestratoR™. Greg featured Craig in a post on the UX for AI blog — "No low-balls anymore." — where Craig demos OrchestratoR™ in action.

Beyond design, Craig is a composer, guitarist, and vocalist with 30+ years of experience. In June 2025 he released Luminous Voyage — a progressive rock album under his project exo-X-xeno, featuring Billy Sherwood, Jay Schellen, and Patrick Moraz. He also designed the cover artwork for the project.

My Résumé

Craig Maher's Resume PDF icon  View Craig's Résumé
* Word version is available upon request.

Certifications

Successfully completed the UX for AI Professional Certification, an intensive, hands-on program in designing, evaluating, and shipping user experiences for AI-powered products. Graduates demonstrate technical fluency in advanced AI product-building concepts: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Vibe Coding (Plan / Code / CLI Test / Judge), and MCP-based agentic application design and development. Using the iterative Snowball Sprint™ methodology, participants are trained in agentic use-case selection and UX design, data flow design through Storyboarding and Digital Twin analysis, and advanced AI ROI and risk evaluation via the Value Matrix approach. The certification culminates in applied project work where participants translate AI capabilities into intuitive, trustworthy, and effective user experiences with real-world impact. Craig's applied project was OrchestratoR™ — an AI accessibility copilot that helps product teams detect, fix, and ship accessible experiences earlier in the workflow. This credential certifies demonstrated ability to ship AI products. Certification issued June 2026: See UX for AI certification

UX for AI Certified Professional badge — issued by UXFORAI.COM, certifying completion of the UX for AI Professional Certification program, 2026

Received Master UX Certification (UXMC) from Nielsen Norman Group, completing 100+ hours of training and passing 15 exams. NN/g is a leader in the user experience field, conducting groundbreaking research, training, and certifying UX practitioners around the world. Certification issued January 2025: See my NN/g certification

UX Master Certification Badge from Nielsen Norman Group

Team Testimonials

Sean Brady, Director of Product Management, 2024:
I had the distinct pleasure of working with Craig to shape the user experience of the products in my portfolio while working in Service Technology at ADP. Craig takes UX design to the heart of the matter - how can we deliver an experience that fulfills the user's need, regardless of how complex that need may be, in a way that is intuitive and delightful? And I do mean the whole experience here - not just the visual design, but also the flow, the entry points, the exit ramps, all of it. Working with Craig elevated our team's products usability and adoption, and he would be an asset to your user experience and design team. I am looking forward to seeing what he does next.

Karen Darko, Lead UX Researcher, 2024:
I had the pleasure of working alongside Craig as a researcher at ADP. From the start, I was impressed by his commitment to user-centered design, and he consistently championed the user's perspective. He actively sought out research insights and championed user testing to ensure our designs truly addressed customer needs. His focus went beyond aesthetics – he was always looking for creative solutions that balanced functionality with a delightful user experience.

Craig was also a fantastic collaborator. He was adept at bringing the development team together to brainstorm and solve problems as a unit. His enthusiasm and positive attitude were invaluable assets to the team.
I highly recommend Craig for any UX design role. He's a talented designer with a deep understanding of user needs and a collaborative spirit that makes him a joy to work with.

Accolades

Over his career, he has been awarded by Graphis for his design contributions. He was elated to get the news in 2013 that he was awarded three "Graphis Gold Awards" for the Logo 8 competition. Zurich, Switzerland-based Graphis has presented the work of accomplished talents in the visual communications industry who have demonstrated exceptional excellence since its first publication in 1944.

Awards:
2013: 3 Graphis Gold Awards: Logo 8
2010: Graphis Gold Award: Design Annual
2008: Graphis Gold Award: Letterhead 7
2005: Published in Graphis: New Talent

My Designer & AI Toolbox

• Pen & Paper
• Figma (Design, Slides & Sites)
• Design Systems
• ChatGPT AI (Research & Personas)
• MidJourney AI (Content Creation)
• Visual Studio Code (Vibe Coding)
• Claude Code (Coding Agent)
• Cursor (Vibe Coding)
• GitHub
• Frame0 (Wireframes)
• Miro (Design Thinking)
• Highcharts (Data Viz)
• Colour Contrast Analyser
• Adobe CC
• Xsort (Card Sorting)
• Screaming Frog (SEO)
• JIRA
• Trello
• Confluence
• VisBug
• Sublime Text
• Bootstrap
• Keynote
• Google Apps
• Survey Monkey (Top Tasks)
• Pendo (Analyze quantitative data)
• Maze (Tree Testing & Card Sorting)
• System Usability Scale (SUS)