About

I’m Hugo Baeta, born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, but San Francisco has been my home since I first left my heart there. Started making websites back in the late 90’s, and have been in love with the web ever since. Through out over 20 years, I’ve seen the web evolve, standards created, and technologies rise and fall. I’ve found a passion for open source software with WordPress in 2005, and have been actively involved with its community ever since.

Went through the Graphic Design program at Restart, in Lisbon, back in 2004, that resulted in an invitation to work with one of my teachers, effectively kickstarting my professional career as a designer. In 2010 decided to pursue academic studies in my field, majoring in Web Design & New Media from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, graduating in the fall of 2015.

You can follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Github, Dribbble (although I rarely update it), and WordPress.org

Speaking

Work

  1. Stripe

    Senior Product Designer — Design Systems

  2. Persona

    Senior Brand Designer

    Brand, Marketing, and Design Systems

  3. Abstract

    Senior Brand Designer

    Project lead, designer, and front-end developer for abstract.com

  4. Blend

    Brand Systems Designer

    While nurturing the Blend brand to a new standard, I’ve been working on Blend.com as a marketing and recruiting tool.

  5. Automattic

    Product Designer, Brand Systems Designer

    Was involved with a variety of teams since I first joined in 2011, spanning from UI/UX work on WordPress.com social features, to Design Lead on the mobile team around the iOS7 launch. In my last position, I worked directly on the open source core WordPress, and the WordPress.org websites.

  6. Jornal Público

    Lead Web Designer

    During my time at Público – one of the largest daily newspapers in Portugal – I had the honor of leading the web design team to bring the multiple web facets of the newspaper to a new level. We worked on setting foundations that are still in place today, and helped hire the team that is still working there.

  7. Core Factor

    Lead Designer

    For a short stay at Core Factor, a small IT and web design shop, I did mostly client work, while evangelizing the team to the use of WordPress and it’s advantages.

  8. Freelancer

    Interaction & Graphic Designer

    Since I kicked-off my professional career around 2004, I quickly developed a solid roster of clients, some of which I’m still in touch with to this day.

Refferals

Hugo is a creative thinker and a hardworking designer; adept at obsessing over every pixel, never settling for less than perfect work.

Matt Miklic (Formerly known as Matt Thomas)
My first Creative Director, and the one who hired me, at Automattic

Hugo is one of those designers who has a fundamental passion for good work deep in his bones. He’s collaborative, knows how to work low-fi to hi-fi, and will stand his ground when appropriate (and is usually right) he always wants to learn, looks for design everywhere in the world and deeply cares about doing great work.

Scott Berkun Author, Speaker, and my first team lead at Automattic

Hugo is a creative, talented, passionate designer who knows exactly how to approach any given design problem with unexpectedly beautiful, yet always functional, solutions. As happy with silk screen as CSS, he’s a true polymath, and works comfortably across media and assignments, always bringing a distinctive vision and vibrant outcome to his projects.

Michael Pick Designer, writer, video producer, and motionographer.
We worked together at Automattic on several projects.