Hi, my name is

Rafael Conde

I design and make apps and stuff

2026–Present
Retro

I joined the team behind the app Retro as a Design Engineer, one of the few "feel good" apps that still bring me so much joy to use daily.

Download from the App Store
Retro app icon

Side Project
Hand Mirror

A Mac app that lives in your menu bar, and when you click on it you get a view from your camera.

Built this in a weekend back in 2020 and it has been a dream side project for me ever since — a small macOS app that people seem to enjoy and it has been featured by the App Store, The Verge, MacStories, 9to5Mac, and others.

I hope it would make my 16 year old self proud!

Download from the Mac App Store
Marketing site
Hand Mirror app icon
Hand Mirror screenshot
Hand Mirror Plus icon

Side Project
Night Knight

I was out on holidays with my family and realized I'd forgotten to bring my kids' night clock, so I built this — it's a night light, noise machine, and wake aid that turns to a different color at a certain time of day.

Free on the App Store
Night Knight app icon

2023–2026
Sketch

I started the year of 2023 by joining the Product Design team at Sketch, an app that has meant so much for me both personally and professionally.

Visit our landing page
Sketch UI
Sketch app icon

Side Project
Thwip

Your portable soundboard, available for iOS and watchOS.

What started as a simple soundboard app for Apple Watch, evolved motivated by playtime with my son — a way to have custom boards for all the Mario sound effects, animal sounds, and quick audio recordings of him saying cute things, that I know won't last long enough.

Download on the App Store
Marketing site
Thwip app icon
Thwip demo
Thwip soundboard
Thwip watch interface
Thwip custom board

Side Project
Spatialty Coffee

Discover and follow coffee recipes, in spatial computing.

My first foray into visionOS development happened when I was wearing my Vision Pro and got up to make some coffee… made sense at the time.

Download on the App Store
Spatialty Coffee recipe window
Spatialty Coffee interface

Side Project
Docktor

Preview app icons in the Dock.

Made this small utility to make my workflow slightly more pleasant when designing macOS app icons, simply drag and drop your icon to preview it in the Dock.

Download for free
Docktor app icon

Side Project
HiDock

A Mac app that lets you set custom Dock settings for when on different displays.

I wanted to have my Dock visible when connected to my large external display, but hidden and smaller when on my laptop, I couldn't believe that there was no way to do that so I built this.

Download for free
HiDock screenshot
HiDock app icon

2021–2023
Along

I got to scratch "work with friends" off my bucket list when I joined Sam Soffes and Bryn Jackson as their Founding Designer at Along.
The goal was to build the best platform for creators to produce amazing content, engage their community, and make a living.

2016–2020
Netlify

I joined Netlify in 2016 as their first designer and was responsible for designing and scaling our app's UI for the next 5 years.

I’ve also led the 2018's marketing and brand redesign, and helped hire and grow our incredible Product Design team.

Learn more about Netlify

Side Project
Booby Track

Convenient and fun way to keep track of your breastfeeds,
on your iPhone and Apple Watch.

A couple of weeks after our son was born, my partner asked if I could write an app for her to keep track of which boob did she feed our baby with last, and at what time. This is that app.

Download on the App Store
Landing page

Mac OS X

Remastered Wallpapers

Classic desktop pictures modernized in 6K resolution and P3 Color Gamut.

I absolutely love these "classic" wallpapers, and was heartbroken when I realized I couldn't find a high enough resolution for my display, so I tweaked them here and there to bring them back to the modern display technology.

Go to site

2015–2023
Layout

Layout was a podcast about design, technology, and everything else.

For almost 8 years, my friend Kevin Clark and I recorded 364 episodes of what became the most fulfilling and special side project I've ever done.

Give it a listen

Side Project
Break this Safe

An Apple Watch game in which you take advantage of the Digital Crown and haptic feedback to break into a safe.

No longer available to download, as a certain version of watchOS introduced some fatal bugs and I haven't had the time to invest back in it.

Read the case study
Apple Watch frame open Apple Watch frame closed

In a previous life

I used to do some things that I am not really doing anymore

  • Frames icon

    Frames

    An iOS utility app to save and mirror your Framer prototypes.

  • SketchCasts icon

    SketchCasts

    A weekly video tutorial on Sketch.

  • Writing icon

    Writing

    I had the honor of being published on netMagazine and Offscreen.

  • Talk icon

    How Being a Developer Makes Me a Better Designer

    Transcript of a talk I used to give.

  • Talk icon

    The Rise of the JAMstack (DJ set)

    Transcript of another talk I used to give.

People I'd like to meet

I've been fortunate enough to meet some of my heroes, but I still have a long way to go.
This is a list of some of the people I'd like to high five IRL.

Copyleft © [what-year-is-this]

This website definitely does not represent the front-end skills of Rafael Conde, this is his personal web standards' rebellion — open sourced.

If you're desperately looking for that blog post on how I hacked my pet feeder to work with Siri/Home… fine, here it is.

… and if you're looking for a simple tool to test macOS Materials, here.

… and if you're looking for a simple tool to test Liquid Glass on macOS Tahoe, here.

Not how this works easter egg