Patrick Mullin

I lead design for complex enterprise products, and build the systems underneath them.

I was the only designer on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and scaled it into a team, then led UX for the publisher products through the merger that became Google Ad Manager. The design systems came after that, and they came out of it. In ad tech since 2000, managing since 2010, on enterprise and B2B software where the problem is complex and the interface should not be.

Patrick Mullin, in glasses and a plaid shirt, chin resting on his hand

Work

  • Data tables 12
    Buttons 11
    Tooltips 10
    Cards 9
    Chips 8
    Dialogs 8

    Google

    Ads Design System overview

    Google's first enterprise design system, delivered two quarters early after the deadline moved six months in.

  • Useful
    4.71out of 5
    Easy to use
    4.92out of 5

    Google

    Density and Accessibility overview

    Breaking a deadlock between data density and accessible click targets.

    • Design system governance

      • Design system product

        • Guidelines

          • Visual language

          • UI guide

          • Content guide

        • Resources

          • Design toolkits

          • Engineer toolkits

    The Trade Desk

    Harbor Design System overview

    The Trade Desk's first design system, from four competing button styles to a single source of truth.

  • Part of Planchet's primitive color grid: four scales, green, slate, amber and red, each stepping from 500 to 900 with its hex value printed on the swatch.

    Side project

    Planchet

    A design system for an app with one user, run like one with a thousand.

All projects

Career

At The Trade Desk I founded Harbor, their first design system, and led its migration to a new visual language. Before that, fifteen years at Google, where I built the first cross-product design system for Ads and managed the team behind it, up to eleven designers and researchers across the U.S., U.K., and China.

  • Founded Harbor, TTD's first design system, and rebuilt its foundations for Zuma.

  • Fifteen years as a manager and individual contributor focused on enterprise design.

  • Front-end web development and design focused on new feature design and development.

  • Front-end web development and technical support.

Peers

  • “He was my manager at Google, and more recently a peer at The Trade Desk, where my team partnered closely with his as we went through a foundational design system shift. During a major foundational migration, he was hands-on with the feature teams building on top of the system, genuinely trying to understand our specific problems rather than handing down a spec and moving on. That kind of engagement is rare, especially at the pace this work demanded, and it's what got a hard, cross-team shift through without teams like mine feeling stranded.”

    Lauren Haas Principal UX Design Lead, The Trade Desk

  • “Pat is not only highly skilled from both a creative and technical standpoint, but also genuinely invested in his team and in creating a foundation that lasts. The design system he built from the ground up has become essential infrastructure across our entire product organization.”

    Amelia Ruslim Product Design, The Trade Desk

  • “Working with Patrick's team was the best experience I've had working with any design group at Google in my 11+ years doing front-end engineering at Google. If I became CEO of Google tomorrow, I'd put Patrick in charge of Material Design.”

    Jeremy Elbourn Tech Lead for Angular platform

All peers