Nick Frühling
Building products people love with design, delight, and dad jokes.
Product design by day and sticker design by night.
Over the course of my career I've cofounded three hilarious children and cried at every Pixar movie.
By day I led a crackerjack team of designers and researchers as the Director of Product Design at tech centaur Staffbase.
By night I’m consulting for Doubleknot Works, helping people with career, coaching, creativity, and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.
With any time left I’m making dumb stickers for smart phones with my animated iOS app that’s now over 75,000 downloads.
Other things
Our division shutting down. Me and my team losing our jobs. And our manager flying into town for a visit. These were exceptionally weird circumstances for a team building event.
10 years ago I set foot in Pixar wearing the most ridiculous outfit. Find out how the untold tale of my viral job application connects to the breakthrough character in Toy Story 4. Did Keanu Reeves portray me in a Hollywood blockbuster?
My youngest is going through a pivotal moment in life: his first viewing of Star Wars. To track what he's seen and what's left, we worked together to come up with this handy dandy, definitive, and printable Star Wars viewing checklist (and useful map of the timeline too).
Previously on
Progressed through individual contribution and design leadership, transforming the flagship product and elevating the “bananabrand”.
Transitioned from web marketing into product as part of this tech startup’s mission to inspire “everyday philanthropists” through charitable impact.
Founded an independent lifestyle blog with my friend all about our hometown, and ultimately sold the site to its current curator.
Working with the faculty and students in the Graphic Design for Marketing department, handling marketing, events, and fixing printers.
A consistent contract culminated in getting to design a new identity for this publicity, marketing, development, and design agency.
My first non-freelance design job, doing a lot of real estate marketing in addition to agency work like graphic design, print, and packaging.
Nice things folks said
I think the coolest thing about Nick is his ability to always exceed your expectations, be it schedule, budget, creative, whatever—he'll find a way to do it better, faster, more effective. I guess what I'm saying is, if you need a design super hero, look no further.
Mark Busse
Fellow & VP Partnerships, Design Professionals of Canada Producer & Host, CreativeMornings Vancouver
Nick transitioned into a role on a full scrum agile team. Designers often struggle with the transition to this regimented and rigorous process. Nick, however, took to this change with enthusiasm and his performance didn't miss a beat.
Clayton Correia
VP, Product, Pagefreezer
I would highly recommend Nick to anyone looking to work with a dynamic, mega talented and best of all, down to earth designer. His sense of humor, effervescent personality and excellent technical skill will be an asset to anyone who is lucky enough to collaborate with him.
Nazia Sharif
Creative Director, Black Sheep Design
Elsewhere online
I won a free year's subscription to Dribbble Pro so I uploaded a bunch of my visual design and illustration work there
One time I was captured on Google Street View riding my shiny red Vespa around town and I actually found it afterwards
From interior design to retro cars and vintage signs, I still save my favourite bits of inspiration on my Pinterest page
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