Karolina Vakula

UI/UX Designer · Product Designer

Calgary, AB·Open to relocating to Vancouver, BC·+1 403 397 5814·karolinavakula@gmail.com
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Summary

UI/UX and Product Designer early in her career, with a Computing Science background and a portfolio of consumer-facing product and UI work. Skilled in turning wireframes, user flows, and product requirements into polished, production-ready interfaces in Figma, and in building and maintaining design systems for consistency and scale. Strong visual execution and attention to detail, with a working knowledge of usability principles, interaction design, responsive layouts, and front-end basics (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). Self-driven and comfortable collaborating with product managers and engineers, iterating quickly on feedback, and adapting in fast-paced startup environments. C1-level English; fluent in English and Ukrainian.

Product & Design Projects

GrowDaily

Product/UI Design Case Study — Goal-Tracking Consumer App

  • Translated product requirements and user research into user flows, wireframes, and information architecture for a consumer-facing mobile product.
  • Designed high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes in Figma, iterating on layout, visual hierarchy, and interaction details.
  • Built and maintained a reusable component library and design system, improving consistency and speeding up design delivery.
  • Applied usability and accessibility principles to create an intuitive, user-friendly experience.
  • Reviewed designs against front-end constraints to keep interfaces production-ready and handoff-friendly.

Carolina Cafe & Catering

Responsive Website Redesign Case Study

  • Performed competitive analysis and defined redesign goals for a consumer-facing web experience.
  • Designed responsive UI across mobile, tablet, and desktop, improving navigation, visual hierarchy, and readability.
  • Organized reusable components to keep the interface consistent and scalable.

Work Experience

Visual Designer · Messiah Lutheran Church

Aug 2025 – Present
  • Design and maintain weekly presentation visuals, applying consistent layout, typography, and brand standards.
  • Modernized outdated visuals, improving clarity and readability by an estimated 25% based on reduced revisions and positive feedback.

Administrative Assistant · Battle River Lending Place

May 2025 – Aug 2025
  • Designed marketing materials (posters, banners, print assets) that contributed to an estimated 20% increase in event engagement and inquiries.
  • Communicated with clients and partners and improved internal processes, increasing equipment-return efficiency by about 30%.

Volunteer Experience

Ukrainian–English Translator · EISA

Aug 2023 – Feb 2024
  • Translated official documents from Ukrainian to English for immigration clients with a high standard of accuracy and attention to detail.

Core Skills

Product & UX Design

User Research
Personas
Competitor Analysis
User Flows
Information Architecture
Wireframing
Interaction Design
Usability & Accessibility

UI & Visual Design

High-Fidelity Mockups
Interactive Prototyping
Responsive Web Design
Visual Hierarchy
Typography
Design Systems & Component Libraries

Collaboration & Handoff

Engineering Handoff
Production-Ready UI Assets
Design Reviews
Team Syncs
Agile / Scrum (Jira)

Front-End Basics

HTML
CSS
JavaScript

AI & Workflow Tools

ChatGPT
Claude
Midjourney
Perplexity

Design Tools

Figma
Adobe Creative Suite
Sketch
VS Code
Git / GitHub
Jira

Education

Bachelor of Science, Computing Science and Mathematics

University of Alberta

In Progress

UX/UI Design Program

GoIT School

2026

Bachelor of Arts, International Relations

University of Alberta

2024

Certifications

  • UX/UI Designer

    GoIT · 2026

  • Foundations of User Experience Design

    Google · 2024

  • Using AI Tools for UX Design

    LinkedIn · 2025

Languages

  • EnglishFluent (C1+)
  • UkrainianNative
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