Brad J. Aldridge is a creative director & designer specializing in unforgettable product experiences on screens and in real life. (And he’s a magician.)


recent work

Meta Ray Ban Display
 Creative Director
2024–2026

 I led the creative direction for Meta's Wearable Design System — the visual language behind the Meta Ray-Ban Display, the first mass-market smart glasses with a built-in display. I defined the typography, iconography, color, layout, and motion language, built uniquely for the glasses’ waveguide display. Working across Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp, I advised teams and held the line on cohesion, keeping the experience feeling like one product through launch. It debuted to critical acclaim, named a TIME Best Invention of 2025.
Instagram
Senior Staff Product Designer
2022–2024

I was a design lead on Instagram's Home Design Team, shaping Feed, Explore, Search, and Profile. I led the shift to a chromeless interface — removing persistent navigation in favor of floating actions that spotlight creator content, predating similar patterns later adopted across iOS. I also designed improved video experiences in Feed, smarter recommendation units, better onboarding, a predecessor to “Tune Your Algorithm,” and Instagram's first AI feature: Backdrop.
 
Google
Senior Visual Designer
2017–2022

At Google, I led Visual Design across three workstreams. I was lead designer on a multi-year refresh of Google Account & Privacy settings for 2B+ users.  I led early strategic work on new OS paradigms that became critical components of Android, Google Nest Hub and Material Design 3.  I also founded Google's Visual Design Steering Council and built an internal conference drawing 2,000 attendees.



archive & extracurricular 
 The Contemporary Jewish Museum
Creative Team Lead
2012–2015

I established the Design Team at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, hiring their first full-time designers and centralizing their work in-house, replacing a mixture of agencies and freelancers hired by individual staff members. My efforts aligned creative across all of the Museum’s teams and brought cohesion to brand and visitor-experience. I expanded upon Pentagram’s wordmark for a brand refresh, built a mobile website and exhibit microsites, designed exhibition graphics and show architecture, produced development/donor ephemera, ads and marketing, and creatively led publications. I led digital interactive experiences within the gallery, a first for the Museum.

Honors: Communication Arts Environmental Design 2015
Genii, The Conjurors’ Magazine
Creative Director
2025

Genii, The Conjurors’ Magazine is the oldest magic magazine in continuous publication for magicians. I’ve been involved in a freelance role since I was 15 when I volunteered for the role of webmaster — remember that title?  In 2025 I was asked to rethink the entire magazine’s look and feel: Respecting the new contemporary voice and honor the long and rich heritage. The redesign was also a long overdue moment to bring all of the print, web and app properties together through a strong design system and contemporary wordmark.  
Book Designs

Designer & Publisher
2012–Present
My start in design came from print — newspapers, magazines and books. And so, anytime I have the chance to help guide and design, or even publish, a book project I leap into action: Toiling away nights and weekends and scrutinizing paper samples and binding dummies. 

Many of my books are for magicians, since I’m also a magician and can uniquely produce novel design solutions and technical layout for teaching the technical mechanics of magic.
 
Bio
Starting his design career in journalism design, Brad took to telling stories across platforms from digital screens to large-scale architectural environments. Brad was on the team that launched the acclaimed Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses, where he led creative direction for the Wearables Design System. He’s been a Visual Design Lead at Instagram and Google. Prior to technology, Brad led creative at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco 

As a designer, he strives to straddle the line of being succinct, subtle, and clear with being loud, obnoxious, and difficult to ignore.  His inspiration as a designer comes from studying how people see and use their eyes to interact with the world, as well as the art of magic and conjuring—Brad is a practicing magician—he goes by the name Bradmagic. (See How to Design Like a Magician, or a short art film Brad made intersecting these topics.)




Principles of working creativity 
Over years working as a designer and creative lead, I’ve found myself rallying around lessons and guidance over and over again — practical values that help drive excellent creative work and vibrant creative team culture.  

Make it intentional.
Even if it’s beautiful, make sure it looks like you did this by hand — that you thought about it. I call this ‘Intentfulness.’ This feels more important than ever these days.
 Just ask.
Ask for help, ask for something bigger, ask for more — More often than not nobody is asking for what they really want and those who do ask often get exactly what they want. 
Be a human.
Everyone we meet is just like us — we all buy toilet paper — so treat folks as friendly and genuine as possible, even when they have power; especially if they don’t.


Practice enthusiasm.
Positivity, and genuine curiosity go a long way to exploring novel ideas, and widening the circle of partners and collaborators who can make big ideas come to life. Not just acting energized, but finding ways to be really excited — excitement is infectious, memorable, and costs nothing extra.
Be pushy and prudent.
Design should be the loudest and strongest advocate for beautiful, well-made things: But don’t confuse that with derailing the mission or deadline — be a negotiator. Design should never be the friction or the enemy. 

Do what’s right.
Creatively, spiritually, morally — push back on anything that feels out of whack. Design won’t change the world on its own, for good or bad, our work influences ideas and how they’re perceived. Choose work that’s for good.



25 Things about Brad in List Format
  1. Can quote lines verbatim from Back to the Future trilogy and The Big Lebowski.
  2. Been to every Disney theme park in the world.
  3. Damn. Except China. But working on it.
  4. Designing web and print experiences since 2000. (Oh, how many lame Wordpresses I once made.)
  5. Magician.
  6. Member of the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, CA.
  7. Mixologist.
  8. Magician Mixologist.
  9. Can juggle.
  1. 7 plus 8 plus 9.
  2. Can make things out of wood and metal and plastic!
  3. Had dinner with Neil Patrick Harris.
  4. Had dinner with Neil Patrick Harris at Disneyland.
  5. (Yeah, he was kind of a third wheel)
  6. Has a book autographed by Walt Disney “To Brad.” (However, this was to some different Brad sometime in the 1950s).
  7. Has Had 2 life-size cardboard cutouts of…himself.
  8. Likes to refer to the Internet in the plural sometimes. Internets.
  1. When he writes his name fast it looks like ‘Bird Alderon.’
  2. His DJ name is ‘Bird Alderon.’
  3. His grandfather is Buzz Aldrin.
  4. His socks don’t match.
  5. He lied about number nineteen.
  6. Ukulele songwriter since age 20 and piano player since age 37.
  7. He feels really guilty about the fib in number nineteen.
  8. This is the last list Brad ever made.





Ⓒ 2026 Brad J. Aldridge

If there’s anything here you really like, feel free to print it out and use a magnet to put it on your refrigerator. Or, maybe you can line the bottom of a bird cage with it. Or turn it over and let a kid draw on the back of it. I’m so glad you could make it to the end of my site, I really hated having gallery pages with grids and slideshows, it felt like folks who visited would just scroll all the way to the bottom. So, next time I see you, I’ll buy you a whiskey.

Site set in Fraunces, by Phaedra Charles and Flavia Zimbardi, with contributions by Ethan Cohen, and Andy Clymer.