S3E8 An interview with Matthew Stephens, Cofounder of DeviantArt

Founders with Pek

Matthew worked at the intersection of design and technology for over 22 years, most recently as VP of Design at The Zebra. He builds high-performing teams and designs award-winning products and brands. Beyond that, he also writes about ethics, accessibility, diversity, and education within design. At The Zebra, he scaled a Design Org from 3 to 22 in 3 years. His teams included product and marketing design, research, and design operations. They built a suite of products that increased revenue from $1M to $100M, along with a 100% retention rate on his team. Before The Zebra, he was the Co-Founder of DeviantArt.com, the largest online art gallery in the world. With over 30 million works of art and 300 million users. He’s also involved in the larger design community, both in Austin and abroad. He’s been a member of Invision’s Design Leadership Forum and is currently serving on the Advisory Board for Austin Design Week. He also donates his time and design skills to various non-profits, including American Cancer Society. In this episode, we talked about How did DeviantArt.com start? Some feature Matthew designed in the early days Deviant Art system Dealing with copyrights and how did they manage it Building and engaging with the community Career after DeviantArt Starting The Zebra What is The Zebra and how it serves people How did he scale design org And MUCH MORE Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewstephens/ https://matthewstephens.com/ https://www.deviantart.com/matteo https://dribbble.com/matthewlarn