Resume
Steven Vanden Heuvel
Principal Designer · Payments and Design Systems
Aurora, IL · Chicago area · Open to remote
Download PDFSummary
Principal Designer on payments and checkout at PayPal, with 18 years of responsive web and design systems work in B2B publishing behind it. I design complex flows where clarity and trust are the core problem, and I build the tooling that makes the work faster.
Experience
Principal Designer, Merchant Enablement
PayPal
- Produced 20+ per-merchant checkout proposal packages on weekly sprint cycles for brands including Home Depot, Nintendo, Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, Chewy, and Microsoft.
- Mapped current checkout against a clearer target state across four entry contexts (Wallet, Express, Standard first time, Standard return) and the major variants (app switch vs web, Pay Later vs Pay in Full, passkey, vaulting). Per merchant: screen audit, complete flows, working prototype, prototype video, and merchant decks.
- On my own initiative, built a browser brief form and a Figma plugin that assembles a per-merchant checkout flow, cutting assembly from 30 to 60 minutes to about 30 seconds across a 38-merchant program.
- Work supports PayPal's priority of greater checkout prominence to grow TPV.
VP and Creative Director
MTG Media Group · grew from Senior Art Director
- Led a 6-person team. Built responsive web products and design systems for 7 publication brands serving 128,000+ B2B professionals.
- Initiated the brand-site rebuilds and introduced mobile-first responsive design, Figma, and Atomic Design via Pattern Lab to the company; began the move to Storybook.js.
- Plate: grew a recipe-database site into a full content platform across Recipes, Trends, Food News, and Magazine. Won the 2017 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Website.
- Project Blackbird: designed and built a dynamically responsive oral-history site. Grand Jesse H. Neal Finalist, top 4 nationally.
- Meatingplace: designed a modern responsive rebuild of MTG's highest-traffic daily news site, where 95% of readers reported taking action from content. The brand was acquired before the rebuild launched.
- Alt-Meat: built the brand, magazine, responsive site, and enewsletters in under 8 weeks.
Founder and Designer
Steven Design Services LLC
- Design systems, responsive web products, and product strategy.
Skills
- Design Systems
- Service Blueprints
- UX and UI Design
- Prototyping
- Wireframing
- Information Architecture
- Interaction Design
- Accessibility
- AI-assisted workflows (Claude Code, Cursor)
- Figma
- Front-end tooling (Astro, React, TypeScript, Node, Python)
Recognition
- 4 Jesse H. Neal Awards
- 6 Neal Finalists
- 1 Grand Neal Finalist (top 4 nationally)
- Folio OZZIE Honorable Mention
- Multiple ASBPE Awards
- Northwestern Medill Guest Speaker
Education
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, B.A. in Art with emphasis in Graphic Design and Marketing