TOBY BARNES

Principal Designer

TOBY BARNES

Principal Designer

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A passionate, empathetic, entrepreneurial leader with over 25 years of experience, building and leading teams for Amazon, Nike, AKQA, Levis, Microsoft, and MTV.

I’m currently Principal Designer at Amazon, leading designers, strategists, and researchers to create the future of Amazon Alexa.

At Nike, I designed and launched a number of physical and digital products, services, experiences, and retail concepts. Some of these you might have heard of: House of Innovation (in NYC, Paris and Shanghai) Nike Live (growing everywhere), Nike Rise (Seoul and London), and Nike Unite (outlet stores). On the digital side I helped design and launch the Nike Retail App, Nike Membership, a huge portfolio of digital/physical services (bra fit, product trial, BOPIS) as well as managed the COVID store experience programs.

Before moving client side, I led Product Innovation at AKQA, the worlds most awarded digital agency. As strategy lead I helped define Nike’s Direct To Consumer Transformation, helped launch Valiant labs (their business innovation pipeline), create Nike Membership (loyalty transformation) and the Nike Retail App. Previously, I was product owner for Nike Training Club, design lead for Connected Products and helped launch Nike Fuelband.

Non Nike work included re-Launching the Palms Resort in Vegas, creating Levis Loyalty Program, and creating a data driven digital platform for Audi.

In the UK, I founded and ran Mudlark; an award-winning digital design consultancy for the games industry, as well as founding 2 gaming start-ups.

Previously I worked for a number of industry leaders including Emap, Virgin and MTV Networks, and as a consultant for Microsoft, SCEE, Electronic Arts, Royal Shakespeare Company, Channel 4 and Mattel. As a founding member of Virgin Media’s Interactive Division I launched Europe’s first commercial interactive TV service.

I am (was 😷) a regular speaker at large industry events including SXSW, Playful, E3, GDC, and Interesting London.

I have a collection of thoughts & field notes here.

MoMA Artist Page

  • Work
    • Principal Designer
  • Education
    • Liverpool University