The designers behind the hottest iPhone apps

Jan 18, 2012

Table of contents:

1. Mari Sheibley - Foursquare
2. Daniel Burka - Oink
3. Danny Trinh - Path
4. Mark Jardine - Tweetbot
5. Tim Van Damme - Gowalla

The introduction of the iPhone has focused even more attention on the design, user interface and user experience of the software we use. Arguably, the iPhone has some of the best designed software of any consumer device. Here are some of the most talented designers behind the biggest iPhone apps available today, including Foursquare, Oink and Path.

Mari Sheibley - Foursquare

Mari Sheibley was the first designer recruited to Foursquare. Mari was the first full time designer, and along with Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, helped shaped Foursquare into what it is today. To read more about how Mari joined Foursquare, read this Quora thread, and to see the evolution of Foursquare’s design, have a look at this post from Mari’s Tumblr.

Daniel Burka - Oink

Daniel Burka is one of the Co-Founders of startup incubator, Milk and designer of their first product, Oink. Daniel was previously the Creative Director at Digg and also contributed to the Mozilla organisation.

Danny Trinh - Path

Danny Trinh is a designer at Path and previously worked at Digg. Danny is just 21 years old, but is already considered one of the best product designers around. Danny got his start in Silicon Valley after sending Daniel Burka, who was at Digg at the time, an introduction email. Danny was invited to one of Digg’s user groups, and then an internship. Whilst at Path, Danny came up with the idea for a new application “With”. This was an app to share who you are currently with, without the need for a connected social network. Path released the app as a short, but it has now been rolled into the release of Path 2.0.

Mark Jardine - Tweetbot

Mark Jardine is the designer behind the incredibly successful Tweetbot Twitter client for the iPhone and is co-founder of Tapbots. Tapbots have released a number of applications for the iPhone including, Calcbot, Pastebot, Convertbot and Weigthbot, and all feature Mark’s distinctive user interface design style.

Tim Van Damme - Gowalla

Tim Van Damme is one of the designers behind the beautiful Gowalla. Before Facebook acquired Gowalla in late 2011, the application was regarded as one of the best designed applications available for iPhone. Before Gowalla, Tim was a freelance designer in his native Belgium. Tim is now an interface designer at Instagram.