Tokyo born and raised, Silicon Valley made
I’m Justin Barber, a designer born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Growing up as a foreigner in a culture that values consideration and conformity (for better and for worse) gave me a liminal perspective on life and design. In other words, I’m shaped like Ando’s Glass.
•••
Weeks after my 21st birthday I moved to Silicon Valley to start my career at Google (back when the logo was a goofy serif, the products were ugly, and shares were trading at $27). I later joined a 13 person startup that, after years of hard work and luck, grew to be worth $3.6B.
Over this time, the Bay Area has become the only place besides Tokyo that I consider “home."
Designed for billions,
valued at billions
My four years at Google – where I worked on the first three Pixel phones and released software to billions of people – taught me how to design for scale and quality. I also learned that the best output comes from small, opinionated teams.
•••
From 2018–2023 I was the first designer and then Head of Design at Applied Intuition, a startup in the autonomous vehicle space. I built a small team responsible for every aspect of our product and brand design.
We helped grow the company into a business worth billions of dollars, a grueling but addictive process that taught me the discipline of pursuing excellence.
Juxtaposition is core to our creative ethos
More
The relentless pursuit of excellence
&
Enough
The time and space to replenish
Precision
Every detail makes the difference
&
Mystery
Every process has a black box
Today
The constraints of reality
&
Tomorrow
The potential of the future