Nick Frühling

Design, delight, and dad jokes.

Hello

My name is Nick and I'm a product designer by day and a sticker designer by night. While working in the industry for 20 years I've cofounded three hilarious children and cried at every Pixar movie.

Staffbase logo

Staffbase

My main job is leading a crackerjack team of product designers and researchers at Staffbase, formerly known as Bananatag. A lifelong love of solving technical problems with creative solutions informs daily duties ranging from design operations to people management, where I apply all my experience to creative leadership, product strategy, and desk toys.

Person in circle accessibility icon

I’m very proud to have led the digital accessibility project, rallying the dev and design teams while working with project management and stakeholders to achieve the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard. While this has been essential for big customers, it ultimately means everyone can use our software.

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Moving from individual contribution to people management has been the most significant change in my career. Whether it’s being mindful in the hiring process, coaching through career progression, or empowering professional development, seeing my team succeed really makes it worth it.

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Starting a new job is stressful enough, but our move to working from home presented the opportunity to completely reinvent remote employee onboarding. From developing custom get-to-you-know-you worksheets to hackathoning our favourite team board game into a virtual format, we’re still iterating and innovating with every new hire.

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My favourite part of the job is adding day-to-day delight, both in the product and in our teams. As a torchbearer for team building, I’m continually trusted with the budget to run events that foster an inclusive culture (and make my kids say “you get paid for this?”).

Fun highlights

Doubleknot logo

Doubleknot

My other job is creative consulting with Doubleknot Works. We support career practitioners, coaches, and organizations through interactive workshops and training. While Andrea, my wife, runs the business full time, I help with publications, course materials, and facilitating LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. We got to speak together at the Cannexus national career conference on Design Thinking for Career Development.

➜ Visit our Doubleknot Works site
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Rag Tag

My side hustle is making stupid stickers for smart phones. Apple's introduction of a sticker ecosystem for iMessage was my chance to jump into the world of app development. I created a set of fully animated stickers and released an app that saw nearly 30,000 downloads in its first week. Rag Tag Co. now has 3 apps in the app store, over 70,000 downloads, and continues to be just super fun to do.

➜ Check out my Rag Tag stickers

Other things

Me dressed as the human cannonball alongside Duke Caboom from Toy Story 4

How Nick the Human Cannonball inspired the legend of Duke Caboom

10 years ago I stepped foot into Pixar wearing the most ridiculous outfit imaginable. Find out how the untold tale of my viral job application connects to the breakthrough little character from Pixar's hit film Toy Story 4. Did Keanu Reeves portray me in a major Hollywood blockbuster?

➜ Read the story to find out
Preview of my Star Wars checklist and timeline

A comprehensive Star Wars checklist

My youngest is going through a pivotal moment in life: his first viewing of Star Wars. Wanting to keep track of what he's seen and what's left, we worked together and came up with a handy dandy, definitive, printable, and unofficial Star Wars viewing checklist companion (and useful timeline too).

➜ May the free PDF be with you
Preview of all the cool avatars on the website People With Cool Avatars

People with cool avatars collab

Twitter can stink but sometimes it shines. When I come across people with cool illustrated avatars I add them to this list. Through a random tweet a stranger was inspired by the list, registered the domain, and created an interactive site that takes it to the next level. It was an unintentional collaboration with Will Phillips Jr but such a fun result.

➜ Look at all these cool avatars

Elsewhere on the internet

See my design and illustration work on Dribbble

Since I won a free year's subscription to a Dribbble Pro account I've uploaded a bunch of my visual design and illustration work there

Read this article about me on Vancouver is Awesome

One time I was captured on Google Street View riding my shiny red Vespa around town and I actually found it afterwards

Check out all the inspiring things I've pinned on Pinterest

From interior design to fancy cars and vintage signs, I still save all my favourite bits of inspiration on my Pinterest page

Instagram photo of the newspaper and props from that fateful day

My friend and I were featured on local news for dressing as donuts and lining up overnight at BC’s first (and only) Krispy Kreme

Thanks for visiting my roadside attraction on the information superhighway.

Get in touch