Synect Media
Lead Product Designer
2016–2018
Company Profile
Company Size
20
Team Size
3–6
Domain
Aviation Tech & Digital Signage
Client Footprint
Microsoft · Airports · TSA
Deployment Scale
60+ retail locations
Company Context
Products & Content
Summary
At Synect, I evolved from 3D animator into a multidisciplinary product leader spanning UX design, product management, art direction, and 3D production. I launched several 0→1 airport and media-operations products—including SDMC, VRE, Content Layout Planner, and Synect Data Server—while introducing human-centered design and agile practices that increased production speed by 30% and reduced render times by 50%.
Synect Digital Media Controller
I led the design and planning of Synect’s 0→1 SDMC initiative, which allowed airport staff to manage digital displays. The platform let staff plan and schedule content by area, with emergency overrides for synchronized messaging. Its core complexity was coordinating our platform with the third-party vendors airports had contracted with.
Chris joined smoothly to an established team and quickly became a vital part of it. He adapted quickly to the way we do things, learned new skills, and helped us improve our processes. He is a talented UX designer, with a great vision for the product as a whole and an inspiring emphasis on the end-user’s experience.
Mattan Margalith
Sr. Software Engineer
Synect Media
Virtual Review Environment
VRE lets users visualize and critique video-wall media in the context where it will be displayed. I led the 0→1 project across multiple roles: I modeled the 3D environment and produced assets for Unity engineers; led discovery research; defined common workflows; and designed the interactions and UI. The multi-platform application supported Windows, Oculus SDK2, and HoloLens.
Content Layout Planner
I led Content Layout Planner from design through deployment. The internal application helped Synect and Microsoft plan and preview video-wall content across different store configurations. By enabling the animation studio to work modularly, it reduced render times by 50% and increased content-production speed by 30%, supporting some of Microsoft’s largest global in-store campaigns.
Low-Poly Sydnie
I led the design of Low-Poly Sydnie as a creative director and production artist. As Seattle’s premier video-wall media company, Synect frequently partnered with Microsoft on marketing campaigns; I led the campaign associated with the opening of its new flagship Sydney store.
Cross-functional Operations
At Synect, I wore many different hats across teams. That gave me a unique perspective on cross-functional collaboration and exposed inefficiencies in how we worked and communicated. As a product leader, I aligned our teams’ missions and processes so they complemented one another, including diagrams that helped executive leadership understand why a simple design critique could introduce a 72-hour delay to production.
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