Product design for companies building in complex spaces
Halaska Studio is a product design studio for funded companies. A senior product design team inside your company, from $20K/month, directed by Chris Halaska. Twenty years in product, six of them at Google.
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.
Our focus is product UX and UI. Brand and website design are separate projects we scope alongside the partnership, so the core engagement stays focused on your product.
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
It starts with Chris. The first month is his time on your product. Real design work, not a strategy deck. The team delivers to his bar. A named senior designer dedicated to your product, visual support woven in, directed by Chris throughout. It ends well, whenever that is. When you’re ready to bring design in-house, we help hire the right person and hand over properly.
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?
With a call. We talk about your product and whether we’re the right fit. If we are, the partnership starts within a week or two, with a heavier month of Chris’s time to begin.
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 partnership include?
A senior product designer dedicated to your product, UI and visual design support when the work calls for it, and Chris directing throughout. Product UX and UI, end to end. From $20K/month, 30-day rolling.
4
Do you help us hire in-house?
Yes. When you’re ready to build your own design team, we help scope the role, run the search, and hand over properly.
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.