Product design for companies building in complex spaces
Crypto, AI, and fintech products tend to fail the same way. The technology works, the interface fights it, and users leave before the value ever lands. We design products where the complexity stays under the surface: clear enough for a first-time user, deep enough for a power user, and honest about what the system is actually doing.
Halaska Studio has shipped this kind of work for twenty years, including six at Google on products used by over a billion people, and years inside crypto at Immutable and across dozens of studio clients since.
What we design
Core product experience.
The flows your product lives or dies on: onboarding, the first session, the daily loop. Designed from the data model out, so the interface matches what the system really does.
Design systems.
Components, tokens, and patterns your team can build with after we're gone. The polish holds because the system holds.
Mobile.
Native iOS and Android product design, and the judgement calls about what belongs on mobile at all.
The surfaces around the product.
Dashboards, docs, activation emails, and the marketing pages that have to explain a complex product in one screen.
Why complex spaces need different designers
A designer who doesn't understand custody, inference, or settlement will iterate toward the wrong answer beautifully. Domain fluency is most of the speed: we've designed wallets, trading interfaces, AI products, and financial tools long enough that the first draft starts closer to right. Fewer wrong iterations is the entire economics of working with us.
How engagements run
Every partnership starts with Chris directly, for the first weeks, on the surface that matters most. The team carries the work from there with his direction. And when you're ready to bring design in-house, we help you hire and hand over properly. The full shape is on How we work.
Proof
Work in this space has helped clients raise, launch, and scale: pitch and product work behind eight-figure raises, platforms redesigned end to end on one system, and AI products taken from prototype to production. Selected pieces are on [Work]; the rest we show on a call.
And when you’re ready to hire
Every external team eventually faces the same conversation: the client wants design in-house. Most drag their feet. We treat it as the best possible ending. We scope the role from the work we’ve done together, run the search through our network of designers we already rate, and stay until your hire is settled in. We’d rather be judged by how good your relationship with design is two years after we’re gone.
1
How do engagements start?
Every partnership starts with three to four weeks of Chris working directly on your product. Real design work, not a discovery deck. At the end, we both decide whether to continue. Dash and the Embedded Plan have their own faster starts.
2
Who actually does the work?
Chris shapes every engagement and directs it throughout. Delivery is carried by our senior product designers, who you meet and work with inside the first weeks. Nobody is hidden and nothing is outsourced.
3
What does the Embedded Plan include?
One senior product designer inside your team four days a week, directed by the studio, starting with a one-week immersion in how you work. Slack-native, in your rituals, shipping from week one. From $18K per month, rolling 30 days.
4
Do you help with hiring designers?
Yes, for companies we’ve worked with. When you’re ready to bring design in-house, we scope the role from the work we’ve done together, run the search through our network, and stay on until your hire is settled in.
5
Do you design specifically for web3?
Yes, natively. Wallets, trading, tokenised assets, and the UX problems unique to the space: keys, gas, trust, and onboarding people who've never held a wallet. We've worked in crypto since before it was polite to say so.
6
Can you work inside our existing design system?
Yes. We extend and improve what exists rather than replacing it for the sake of it. If the system is the problem, we'll say so with reasons.
7
What tools do you work in?
Figma for design, Framer for marketing sites, and Claude Code for interactive prototypes. Deliverables land in whatever your team builds with.
8
Do you do research?
Enough to make decisions, never as theatre. Founder and user conversations, product analytics, and shipped-and-measured beats lab-tested-and-shelved.