Charlie's Avatar

Hi, I'm Charlie.

Emails
About Me

I design and build products and tools.

My setup is a product studio, funded by select client sprints — product-market fit and UX, working code in technical founders' repos, validated and tested with real users. Browse the client case studies. 2026 availability.

Below is everything else: personal projects, apps I'm building, and a few stories from along the way.

Testimonials
Bartosz
RT

“I’m amazed. Unbelievable. Everything was done so fast and the quality of the insights from the user validation is incredible.”

Bartosz, Co-founder, Research Tech

Szymon Sypniewicz
Co-founder of Ramp Network

“Shortest design cycle available on the market. Charlie is a master of communication, so working with him is not only very effective, but also a real pleasure.”

Szymon Sypniewicz, Co-founder of Ramp Network

Mike
Co-founder, Hummingbot

“In a mere two weeks, they took a high-level concept and turned it into a visually stunning leaderboard app that delights our users. As a small, highly technical team, we found that because they were able to own all the design, UI/UX and front-end engineering related to the project, it allowed us to concentrate on back-end and data engineering, where our strengths lie.”

Mike, Co-founder, Hummingbot

Philipp Toth
P

“We found Charlie by searching for the Ramp designer — we needed someone who actually understood fintech UX. His user testing caught what we never would have: users freezing on the first screen, not understanding why verification was needed. Insights that would have killed adoption. He delivered it all in production-ready code we could integrate directly — no Figma translation, no months of back-and-forth. His work was instrumental to securing our next round of funding.”

Philipp Toth, Founder, Paid247

Now · 2024 — 2026
DocsNext.js

Zebra Sprint Docs

The full sprint methodology, documented and open. How we validate critical user journeys in code, not Figma.

ellington.design/docs
Zebra Sprint Documentation
Mac AppIndie Product

Design Canvas

Figma's infinite canvas, but for live code. Pan and zoom across all your app screens. Built in a week.

designcanvas.app
Design Canvas — infinite canvas for live code
AIAsyncUX

AI-Powered User Testing Tool

I built an AI user experience tool that interviews your users while you sleep.

usertesting.zebradesign.io
AI User Testing Interface - Dashboard View
AIOpen Source

Design Agents

AI-powered design workflow agents that ship production code. Open source tools for the design engineering era.

agent.config.ts

export const agent = {

name: 'design-agents',

type: 'design-engineer',

ships: true,

}

AIAnimationOpen Source

Visual Motion Design Agents

AI agents that generate production-ready Framer Motion animations. Turning design intent into shipped code.

motion.agent.ts

export const agent = {

name: 'motion-agents',

type: 'design-engineer',

ships: true,

}

PersonalFull-Stack

Gift List App — Coco

Built a gift list app for my daughter's birth. Full-stack Next.js, designed and shipped in a weekend.

cocoellington.com
Coco Gift List App
PersonalUX Case Study

IFS Application

A personal project exploring Internal Family Systems therapy through thoughtful UX design.

ifs-app.zebradesign.io
IFS Application Interface
Personal · 2018 — 2024
2023Sabbatical

Sabbatical

Sunrise surfs, values reset, and the space to figure out what actually matters. A year that changed everything.

Surfing during sabbatical
2023Off-Grid

Building Off-Grid Campervans

Hand-built a campervan and lived off-grid for months. Solar panels, composting toilet, complete freedom.

Custom-built off-grid campervan
2018Engineering

DIY Electric Yacht Conversion

Converted a sailing yacht to electric propulsion. Batteries, motor controllers, and a lot of fibreglass.

DIY electric yacht conversion
Web3 Era · 2017 — 2023
2018-2023Web3Remote-first

Deep Work Studio

Co-founded Deep Work Studio. The UX behind Web3's most important launches, including Ethereum's staking platform.

Deep Work
Ramp Network
Ethereum Foundation
Nexus Mutual
Maker
ConsenSys
Arbitrum
Web3Product Design

Ramp Network — First Product

Designed Ramp's first product from zero to launch. Fiat-to-crypto onramp used by millions.

rampnetwork.com
Ramp Network — first product design
DeFiWeb3First Product

Nexus Mutual

Designed one of the first DeFi products. Decentralised insurance on Ethereum, from concept to shipped UI.

nexusmutual.io
First Chapters · Pre-2017
2013-2017Founder€1.5M Revenue

Yoga Retreat Company

Founded and scaled a yoga retreat company to €1.5M annual revenue. Learned everything about building a business from zero.

Founder of yoga retreat company
2011FounderMedia

Media Agency

Created a media agency whilst at university in 2011. Clients included Danone and Evian and more fun ones like mountain bike events.

2008-2012Leadership

Teaching Sailing

My first 'job' was teaching sailing from a beach in Greece.

Teaching sailing on a Hobie Cat
1989Origins

Ocean Kid

On the ocean since I was eight, sailing, windsurfing, kitesurfing and later surfing.

Ocean kid — kitesurfing since childhood
Working Together