David
I lead design for 70+ people at Volvo Group — and I photograph the quiet in between.
I've spent twenty years working on the part of design that disappears when it works.
The moment a system already knows what you need before you've had to ask — for a rail passenger who just missed a connection, a patient managing a chronic condition, or a designer finding their footing in a global organisation. Photography is the counterweight: where I slow down and pay attention to what stays.
Field notes, on the move.
Leica Q3 43 · 43mm
Leica Q3 43 · 43mm
Leica Q3 43 · 43mm
Leica Q3 43 · 43mm
Leica Q3 43 · 43mm
iPhone 14 Pro
Building the operating system for how design scales.
At Volvo Group I lead UX Design — 70+ designers, design leads, and managers across Europe, the US, and Asia. The work I care most about is systemic: building the operating system for how a function this size defines its process, grows its people, and adapts its skill model as AI reshapes what design work actually is. My best work is the work I can hand away.
Leica Q3 43 · natural light
One of Leica's 100 Photographers.
A humbling place to land for someone who mostly likes to walk slowly and look. The frames below are the ones that stayed with me — where the light was doing something I couldn't have planned.
Leica · 100 Photographers series · 2025 ↗
Leadership never cured the urge to build.
At Electrolux I led interaction design across the connected portfolio — setting the Smart Home UX direction and building universal interaction models that held across product categories and brands. The goal was always to make complexity invisible. That work became a handful of filed patents. These days I ship iOS apps — starting with Echo Frame, a study in sight and sound that pairs a photograph with the music that resonates with it. More are in the works with an occupational therapist, built for the small everyday moments that matter.
One UX logic scaling across hardware, software, and operating systems — regardless of category or brand. Complexity, made to disappear.
Four filed patents from the Electrolux work: a proximity-aware adaptive display, user recognition with personalised preferences, a safety mode that detects unauthorised users, and an appliance interface design.
Echo Frame studies a photograph — its story, and everything from colour to light to composition — then surfaces the song that resonates, from your own library or the whole catalogue. Sight and sound, made in the low light of Stockholm.
Say hello.
david@departive.comSet in Instrument Serif & Instrument Sans · © 2026