まさむね

['Masamune' in Hiragana]
A new digital design firm named after Gorō Nyūdō Masamune, a medieval Japanese blacksmith, and widely recognized as Japan's greatest swordsmith.
Masamune will continue the legendary swordsmith’s tradition of excellence and craftsmanship into the digital-age.
Image of Japanese mountain range
Designer-led
Led and run by actual designers
We are managed by practitioners in the discipline who actively practice their craft every single day.

Direct Line of Communication

We maintain open, direct communication between designers and stakeholders to work hand-in-hand in co-creating the user experience alongside us across the design process.

Holistic Curation

Our designer crafts each experience end-to-end, ensuring holistic design, creativity, craftsmanship, and skill at the highest level. This allows us to deliver exceptional, consistent results far beyond designs based on most design systems.

Photo, John Lee, Founder & Principal Designer
Photo, John Lee, Founder & Principal Designer

John Lee

Founder & Principal Designer

John Lee

Founder & Principal Designer

John embarked on becoming a designer in 2007, and spent several of his initial years studying and practicing the fundamental principles of design, and afterwards began freelancing to local small businesses.

John has assumed senior design positions from early-stage startups to some of the largest companies in the world, particularly in the healthcare and pharmacy-benefits sectors.

John firmly believes building today's modern responsive platforms require a hybrid designer skillset. Under the direct tutelage of an architect-level developer, he learned to code and understand the intricacies of front-end development and the mobile-first approach, and served as liason between Amtrak's CX and FE DEV teams.

Experience

  • Selected as primary designer for Anthem Find Care
  • Selected as primary designer for Anthem Sydney Health mobile platforms
  • Selected as primary designer to re-envision Anthem Sydney Health mobile platforms
  • Selected as primary designer to redesign Amtrak.com
  • Selected as primary designer for Express Scripts PBM
  • Selected as primary designer for Willu
  • Selected as primary designer for Nextec Inc

Independent Skills Verification via Aquent (2018)

  • Among the highest echelon, upper crust of designers ever assessed
  • Potentially #1 in Visual Design ever assessed
  • Prodigical-level UX instincts and abilities
  • Absolute rarest combination of talent and skillsets ever assessed
  • Recommend without reservation, qualified #1 designer for any company in Aquent's client portfolio

Miscellaneous

  • MBTI Personality Type: INFJ-A
  • Birthplace / Fairfax County, Virginia
  • Favorite Animal / Neko 🐱

Services

We handle all aspects of experience design

Artisan Craftsmanship

We run contrary to the modern, widespread belief of using an assembly line approach to experience design. We deploy a more artisan approach under multi-disciplinary practitioners with attained mastery. Sometimes the old ways are best.

UX Architecture

We build the architecture of every platform front to back under the purview of our designer for a cohesive foundation we design upon as we traverse back and forth through a holistic design process.

Native UI

Not all native designs are truly native. We specialize in designing for native platforms, and utilize truly modern UI and interactions along with a sleek, clean aesthetic.

Touch-optimized

We work off a clean-sheet approach to optimize every interaction and touch-point that's a perfect fit for each design. We craft designs featuring truly modern touch controls.

Responsive Platforms

We design responsive platforms as hybrid designers using a true mobile-first approach, carefully scaling from mobile, through tablet, and into desktop. We optimize every design to take advantage of the benefits offered by each breakpoint.

Bespoke Design Systems

We craft design systems organically through the design process that is bespoke, of the highest-grade quality, and unique only to your organization.

Our Location
The nation's capital
We are proudly based in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.
Half-way Open, Lit Macbook Pro Sitting On Desk

Correspondence

If you'd like to chat with us
Due to our intensive design process, we work with a maximum of two client partners concurrently.

contact@masamunedesign.com

We usually respond within the hour

(571) 758 7212

M-F / 10a-6p EST