Stefan Kovalik

Designer Engineer · Web-Native Craft · Brand + Spatial Systems

San Francisco, CA · (805) 708-9047 · [email protected]

aurochs.agency · cognograph.app · github.com/skovalik · linkedin.com/in/kovalik

Fifteen years as sole designer and engineer across consumer brands, startups, and my own agency. Web-native craft (React, TypeScript, Three.js, GLSL, Electron with Y.js CRDT multiplayer) paired with brand-as-system reflex: brand identity, marketing surface, product UI, and runtime treated as one continuous artifact. Cognitive psychology background (UCSB) applied to spatial substrates for creative and AI-augmented work.

Design focus: cognitive psychology applied to creative tools and visual-authoring environments; spatial substrates for AI-augmented creative work; brand systems that compound from marketing surface to product UI.

Selected Work

Cognograph

Spatial AI workflow canvas · brand to runtime · solo build · cognograph.app · github.com/skovalik/cognograph

Sole designer and engineer. Electron + React 18 + TypeScript + React Flow + Three.js + Y.js CRDT multiplayer. Multi-provider runtime across Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, and local Ollama. AGPL-3.0 with Defensive Patent Pledge. Shipped the full stack solo: spatial UI primitives, agent orchestration runtime, GLSL-shader rendering pipeline, design system, brand, marketing site, waitlist-to-product flow.

Four provisional patent applications filed with USPTO February 2026, covering graph-based context assembly, spatial-topology agent permissions, position-based trigger activation, and conversational plan refinement with atomic execution.

Perception-First Design

Open-source design methodology grounded in cognitive psychology · github.com/skovalik/perception-first-design

Five-layer framework built on ~100 peer-reviewed citations across Lavie, Damasio, LeDoux, Sweller, and Lang, applied to interface, brand, and visual-authoring decisions. Dual-licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 + MIT. Ships with a corpus-driven evals engine (26 heuristics, 7 worked examples, 3 design system profiles) and a Claude Code skill. v3.6. Stress-tested across n=25 Fortune 500 sites.

Selected Writing

Experience

Aurochs · San Francisco, CA · January 2025 – Present

Founder & Designer Engineer · aurochs.agency

  • Sole design and engineering function for Cognograph and Perception-First Design (above): brand, marketing site, product UI, runtime.
  • For client work: full-stack web builds, brand systems, and launch packages. Redesigned VacuumSealersUnlimited.com; revenue grew approximately fourfold over ten years to $5M+ annual.
  • Run production infrastructure for client sites: Cloudflare Pages and Workers, headless content workflows, server hardening, security audits, incident response for live commerce systems.

Simply Smart Home · Dublin, CA · October 2019 – December 2024

Director of Digital Design (Jun 2022 – Dec 2024) · Lead Product Designer (Oct 2019 – Jun 2022) · mysimplysmarthome.com

  • Sole design and engineering lead across brand identity, packaging, retail materials, mobile app, e-commerce UI, and marketing. One continuous design system from marketing surface to product.
  • Built a 3D product visualization library using virtual photography, replacing physical photo shoots for marketing, packaging, and retail materials. Designed and developed the e-commerce platform from scratch.
  • 233% sales increase; revenue grew from $1.5M to $5M. DTC channel grew from <2% to 15% of revenue. Retail placement at Costco, Walmart, Target, Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowe's; Disney licensing deal.

QTBIPOC Design · August 2020 – Present (Part-time advisory)

Technology Director / Brand Strategist · 501(c)(3) nonprofit · qtbipoc.design

  • Co-founded the planning committee; built the first corporate website; trained five junior designers across initial cohorts.

The iO Theater · Chicago, IL · 2016–2019, 2023–2024

Website Designer & Contractor · ioimprov.com

  • Redesigned the venue's site across two ownership transitions. SEO overhaul drove 20% organic traffic increase; Ticketfly POS integration grew online ticket sales from 50% to 75%.

Tantum Technologies · Dublin, CA · June 2010 – April 2015

Co-founder & Website Designer

  • Co-founded an agency at 23. Sole design function for 15+ startup ventures backed by Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran. Delivered websites, branding, and marketing to broadcast timelines.
  • Built and operated POS-integrated commerce platforms; engineered for broadcast-driven traffic spikes (120K unique visitors within 10 minutes).

Education

University of California, Santa Barbara · 2011

B.A. Psychology · Focus: cognitive psychology, human behavior, decision-making.

Technical Skills

Design systems
Brand identity, UI/UX, interaction design, information architecture, prototyping, design tokens, component libraries, motion design, 3D product visualization.
Frontend
React 18, Zustand, React Flow, TypeScript, modern CSS (Grid, Flex, container queries, animations), HTML/JS, accessibility, responsive systems.
3D & real-time
Three.js, WebGL, GLSL shaders, Substance 3D, Electron, Y.js CRDT multiplayer, particle systems, post-processing pipelines.
Backend & infra
Node, Python, PHP, WordPress/WooCommerce, headless content workflows, Cloudflare (Pages, Workers, R2, DNS), Supabase, Git/GitHub.
AI / agentic tooling
Claude Code (daily user), Anthropic Agent SDK, MCP, plugin and skill authoring, prompt engineering, evals.
Strategy
Cognitive psychology applied to design, user research, A/B testing, data-driven optimization.
Tools
Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects), Figma, Notion, Jira.
Languages
English, Spanish (conversational).
Citizenship
United States.