# Samuel von Tucher > Product Designer **Hey, I’m Samuel!** A product designer with four years experience working between design and code. I design software for people and, increasingly, for AI agents as well. I work on strategy, processes and interfaces, so products are easy to use and achieve what they were built to do. ## About **Product designer building with AI and for it** I design digital products, mostly for startups with complex workflows. I bring structure to them, decide what matters and refine the interface until it holds up in real use. I started working with AI early, when the first image and language models became publicly available, and I’ve stayed with it ever since: testing tools, building prototypes and asking where AI really helps people and where it only adds noise. I share what I learn, for example in workshops like the one at UdK Berlin. Today I design interfaces for AI products and use AI in my own process wherever it makes the work better. My background is in agencies: first as a developer, then as junior art director digital and UX designer at MILK in Cologne. That’s where I learned the whole process, from concept and strategy to the shipped product. Since 2025 I’ve been working freelance, from Bonn for teams in Cologne and Hamburg, and I hold a Master’s in UX Design. Coming from development, I speak the language of the people who build products. ### Experience - Product Designer, Self-employed, Remote (May 2025 – Present) - Master UX Design, [RH Köln](https://rh-koeln.de/), Cologne, Germany (Sep 2024 – Aug 2026) - UX Designer, [MILK](https://milkdesign.de/), Cologne, Germany (Feb 2024 – Dec 2024) - Junior Art Director Digital, [MILK](https://milkdesign.de/), Cologne, Germany (Jul 2022 – Feb 2024) - Trainee Web Developer & UI Designer, [Büro für Brauchbarkeit](https://www.brauchbarkeit.de/), Cologne, Germany (Jan 2022 – May 2022) - Intern Augmented Reality Design & Development, [Format Design](https://format-design.com/), Hamburg, Germany (Sep 2019 – Feb 2020) - Bachelor Design, [TH Nürnberg](https://d.th-nuernberg.de/), Nürnberg, Germany (Oct 2017 – Aug 2021) ## Projects ### [Memento](https://dev.samuelvontucher.com/projects/memento.md) AI-powered desktop app that makes knowledge documentation easier while keeping users in control. - Type: University - Role: UX Researcher and Designer - Period: 2026 - Status: Completed - Disciplines: Research, UX Design, UI Design Solo Master's thesis (M.A. UX Design, Rheinische Hochschule Köln, February to July 2026); I did the research, concept, UX and UI design and the evaluation myself. The thesis combined literature on knowledge management and human-AI interaction with qualitative interviews (four users from software development and consulting, three experts in knowledge management, AI and UX), from which I derived six design principles. Key decisions: a native desktop app instead of a web app, so knowledge can be captured via a global shortcut and an overlay right where it is created; and deliberate friction, so every AI-generated change has to be reviewed before it enters the knowledge base (connected to tools like Confluence, Jira and GitHub). The result is a tested high-fidelity prototype, not a shipped product. Moderated think-aloud tests with five participants gave an average SUS score of 92; participants mainly asked for finer, diff-like control per document, which became one of six recommendations for the next iteration. ### [E-Mobility App](https://dev.samuelvontucher.com/projects/e-mobility-app.md) Under NDA: the details are shared on request. Designing a charging app for the road, from route planning to payment. - Type: Employed - Role: Design Lead UX and UI - Status: Completed - Disciplines: UI Design, UX Design - Tools: Figma I designed this app in 2024 while employed at a design agency. I started on individual features and over the year took over most of the design lead, working with the client’s product owner and stakeholders. My main areas were route planning with alternative charging stops, the charging session, switching between personal and business payment, and the states of a physical charging card. The app is live in the App Store and on Google Play. It launched after I left the project. The client’s name, the screens and the details are shared on request. ### [Koordi](https://dev.samuelvontucher.com/projects/koordi.md) Concept and design of an app that guides volunteer events from planning to event day. - Type: University - Role: UX Designer - Period: 2025–2026 - Status: Completed - Disciplines: Research, UX Design, UI Design, Branding - Tools: Figma Two-person project with André Schlieker in the Master's in UX Design at Rheinische Hochschule Köln (information design module, 2025). We shared research, concept, structure, branding and prototyping. The app serves two roles: a web app for organizers and a mobile app for helpers, scoped to events with up to 100 helpers. Key decisions: rebuilding the navigation around role and event after the first sitemap treated all features as equal, and an Event Mode that removes planning features on event day and shows a live site map instead. We also created the full brand (logo, Gilroy typeface, blue/orange/green palette) aimed at older, less tech-savvy volunteers. The result is a clickable prototype; it has not been tested with users. ### [H2ALL Website](https://dev.samuelvontucher.com/projects/h2all-website.md) Designing a clear and confident digital presence for H2ALL, a start-up building the future of hydrogen plant planning. - Type: Client work - Role: Web Designer - Period: 2025 - Status: Completed - Disciplines: UI Design Freelance commission in September 2025 from the founders of H2ALL, a hydrogen start-up that knew my work from an earlier university project for them. I designed the sections and visual language of the marketing website; development was done by a separate developer. I evolved the brand created in that university project instead of starting from scratch. The page had to speak to engineers, investors and permitting authorities at once, so it leads with one core promise and reveals technical depth step by step: process visualisation (simulation, evaluation, permit planning), problem and solution, feature grid, team and partners. The site is live at h2-all.com. ### [PosterGAN](https://dev.samuelvontucher.com/projects/postergan.md) Bachelor thesis exploring the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence to create design - Type: University - Role: Designer and Researcher - Period: 2021 - Status: Completed - Disciplines: Research - Tools: StyleGAN2-ADA Solo Bachelor's thesis in design at Technische Hochschule Georg Simon Ohm Nuremberg (2021), before tools like Midjourney or ChatGPT were available. I collected and standardised a dataset of more than 12,000 posters and fine-tuned a StyleGAN2-ADA model that had been pre-trained on faces. The research question was whether an AI can design on its own. Analysing the generated posters showed recognisable design decisions (coherent colour palettes, partial use of compositional rules, text-like typographic shapes) but no understanding of what the content communicates. The prints were exhibited at the Ohmschau at TH Nuremberg. The project shows that I have worked hands-on with generative AI since well before it became mainstream. ## More - [About](https://dev.samuelvontucher.com/about.md): experience and background ## Contact - E-mail: hello@samuelvontucher.com - Location: Bonn, Germany, Earth - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samuelvontucher/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelvontucher/ - X (Twitter): https://x.com/samuelvontucher - Are.na: https://www.are.na/samuel-von-tucher Website: https://dev.samuelvontucher.com