Hello, I’m Finn 👋

I’m Finn Marten, a product designer. Originally from Germany, working across Europe, currently based in Valencia. Everything else on this page assumes you know who is writing it, so this is the part that says.

How I got here

I started out as a graphic designer in the gaming and esports scene. That was the work: logos, jerseys, broadcast graphics, the things a team needs to look like itself. In 2021 that took me to Luminosity. It was good training in one specific thing, which is that a design either survives contact with a real audience or it doesn’t, and you find out immediately.

From there I moved into web3, and that is where I had my first real touchpoints with product design. Graphics are a surface; a product is a system with states, edge cases and people who have to get something done inside it. At FiDi Tech I ended up as Head of Design for four years, working on data products where the hard part is never the styling but what a number means and where it belongs on the screen.

That grew into leading design for startups: Dream, youe, Arkh, Studio Three. Different sectors, the same underlying job. Somebody has a domain that is more complicated than a screen can hold, and the work is deciding what belongs at which layer.

What I run now

In 2022 I co-founded Studio Sphere, a product-focused design studio. We help companies scale with a high level of craftsmanship, interface feel and user-centric behaviour. In 2025 I co-founded Boardly, an engineering studio that ships its own products rather than only client work. Between them are the things I actually get to build: Rivals, SystemOS, Dial, PathKit.

I also studied Computer Science in Germany, and finished the degree while running all of that. The thesis took its own post to explain.

What I care about

Interfaces that are unremarkable in use. Not plain, and not the same cream-and-terracotta template as everything else, but ordinary in the sense that they behave the way people already expect and stop being noticeable. Hit areas where fingers go. Errors where the eye already is. Motion that says something happened rather than that somebody owns a motion library.

That belief is the reason for Ordinary Interfaces, a set of 180 UI rules where every rule carries a number, cites where the number came from, and says where it stops applying. I would rather argue with evidence than with taste.

Working together

I’m open for projects. The fastest way to reach me is the mail link at the bottom of any page on this site.