Ryan Baker

I started as a pixel artist and sprite animator, worked my way through art direction, brand strategy, and indie game development, and have spent over 20 years building visual experiences across just about every medium. What you leave out matters just as much as what you put in, and that instinct shapes how I approach everything from a brand identity to a full digital experience. Bringing that kind of thinking to eCommerce, where design directly affects whether people trust a brand enough to buy, is work I find endlessly interesting.

Location and Scenery
Springfield, Missouri. I've built my creative life here and the community keeps surprising me.

Special Skills
Brand strategy, illustration, animation, UX/UI, type design, and motion graphics. I studied graphic design, illustration, painting, and art history, which means I tend to think about visual communication from a lot of angles at once.

Fun Fact
I co-founded an indie game studio, raised twice our Kickstarter goal developing a 2D action RPG, and have now been in the video games industry for over 20 years.

What do you like to do to unwind outside of work?
When I'm not thinking about design, I'm usually making something else entirely, whether that's music, games, or art. Creativity doesn't really have an off switch for me, and I've stopped trying to flip it.

Favorite part of being an Otter?
Getting to bring brand and creative thinking into a team that takes the technical side just as seriously. When strategy, design, and engineering are all at the same table, the work gets genuinely interesting.