Wait, who are you?
I'm Adam Lopez, and I work as a product designer and product design manager in Los Angeles, currently driving multi-platform experiences that keep millions of people entertained.
At Paramount Streaming (Pluto TV / Paramount+) I've led a small team of product designers to progressively build and manage core experiences across many millions of users and billions of minutes of entertainment.
I've spent my career between two poles of building software: 0→1 venture design (BCG Digital Ventures, 55 Foundry) and product design leadership at scale (Paramount Streaming (Pluto TV / Paramount+)). The constant is making complex systems sensible to humans — and human behavior legible to the system.
As a maker and designer
I'm a lifelong maker, constantly chasing my curiosity and driven by a desire to understand the world.
I've spent a lot of my life making things on the internet: I hand-coded my first site back in '96, and have been at it ever since. School was art and philosophy, then Art Center College of Design for graphic design (transmedia, branding, information design). After that: digital interfaces, physical interaction, new ventures, and design leadership at streaming scale.
I'm easiest to describe as an intuitive designer who works like a scientific builder. I love learning. I believe in knowing how things work and came to be; solutions that go deep are more impactful than layers of shallow updates. I think in systems, and believe that rules are best derived from an understanding of system-level interaction. I organize concepts and people, untangle complex processes, and make new tools to help understand the problem and shape the solution.
I love people. I believe in moving toward the greater good in all things: we take care of ourselves when we take care of our community. People are the most important part of any system I care about.
As a design leader
I drive value as a player-coach: strategy and craft in the same hands. Leadership isn't about speaking loudest and being an expert at telling people what to do. It's about taking care of your teammates so that group success is more likely.
As designers, one of our basic tools is empathetic curiosity. In managing teams, I draw on this by asking questions more often than giving advice, by anticipating needs just enough, and by seeking to understand personality drivers and needs.
In operating a team, I aim for creating a culture where designers are supported and empowered to build. Where I can, I adapt my UX skills to hone workflows that reduce the team's time spent on overhead and coordination. Automation and intelligence augmentation aren't new, and all the freshest AI tools are most valuable when they can deliver outsized results against effort and cost - the same as any other tool.
As a human
I love teaching myself new techniques and collecting knowledge and skills - the latest side hobby is refurbishing hundred-year-old windows with traditional techniques.
In the past, I've built food gardens and constructed physical electronics devices that feel analog. My happy spot is in a cafe window, sipping coffee and watching the dogs.
I love video games (puzzles, exploring, and narrative), sci-fi and speculative fiction shows and movies, journaling, and working at having a simple life.
If you're still curious
Get some answers to your questions · Read up on what I do · Contact me