Sprint
Focused work against one question.
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1 to 2 weeks
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Scoped Monday, delivered Friday
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Teardown, screens, or prototype
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Shared as it happens
Best for: A single call that needs a senior answer now. A surface, a flow, a direction.
Working with founders and teams whose product doesn't exist yet.
Hold Fast Studio is just me, Kevin Korpi. Principal-level product and design, no subcontractors, no account managers. Wherever the product is, I take it the rest of the way with you, from product direction to core experience to a working prototype. Most of that work sits where hardware, software, and AI meet.
/ Now
Summer 2026
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Embedded with Darren Aronofsky's film studio on the future of AI filmmaking, which is roughly everything I'm allowed to say.
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Designing a multi-agent computer-use platform. Basically autonomous robots. Agents running real work on their own computers.
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Founding design for an AI marketing platform that generates on-brand pages for enterprise commerce.
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New camera in the rotation, the Hasselblad X2D II. Hardware meets software, one of my favorite products ever.
/ Work
Recent Projects
25+ years working mostly on products you can hold. Cameras, watches, phones, bespoke software on custom hardware. Lately, a lot that work while you don't. Agents driving computers, generating films, publishing pages. The medium changes every few years but the job really doesn't. Figure out what the product should be, the problem to solve, design it, ship the real thing. Repeat.
A camera UI in 72×32 monochrome pixels. A phone camera app from zero to $1M ARR. Conversational AI at Microsoft Research a decade before anyone was selling conversations. I've shipped for three trillion-dollar companies and for teams that could fit in my van.
Recent Projects
/ Working Together
One Motion
Most early teams stitch this together from three people. One decides what to build, one designs it, one prototypes it. These days sometimes no one even writes it down. The seams are where months disappear. I collapse the loop. Strategy becomes design becomes a working prototype in days, tested with real users. Craft is assumed. So is building with AI agents daily. I've held the titles separately, head of product, head of design, principal designer, and the work goes best when I don't have to pick one. Built for early-stage chaos. Bad at big company process.
Zero to One
The founding design work.
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6 to 12 weeks
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Direction, core flows, and the system behind them
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Design files or working repo
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The discipline is design, the build stays yours
Best for: A product that exists as a deck, a repo, or a hunch. Barely a category yet, nothing designed.
Design Partner
A standing design seat without the hire.
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Monthly, ongoing
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Embedded 50 to 75 percent
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Your tools, your repo
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Eyes on everything that ships
Best for: A team shipping every week with no senior designer in the room. Deep enough to own outcomes.
Advisory
Senior judgment, without the embed.
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Monthly, light touch
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Calls plus async reviews
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Direction pressure-tested
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Risks flagged early
Best for: Founders and design teams who own the work and want it stress-tested before they commit.
Two clients at a time. Three-month minimum. Embedded retainers from $25K/month, weighted to scope and stage. Fixed-scope projects from $40K. Equity considered for the right early-stage fit. Board seats considered.
"Hard-earned experience and real taste."
"Kevin is a great design partner for startups at all stages. He brings both hard-earned experience and real taste. Recommended!"
Founder and CEO, Superpilot "Natural product acumen."
"We hired Kevin to help with product incubation and future roadmap articulation. He delivered consistently with great quality and with a great attitude. I'd recommend Kevin without hesitation for his natural product acumen and collaborative approach."
Wearables Design Lead, Google "Pushes the limits of product development."
"With a discerning eye for detail... Kevin consistently pushes the limits of product development, while simultaneously driving the process forward... his contributions to GoPro and the field of UX are elevated having worked with him."
Senior Principal Designer, Cameras & Hardware, GoPro "Our launch would not have been possible."
"Lead product designer collaborating with Research, Engineering, and Product under tight deadlines... tremendous impact as the design lead and strategist."
Director of UX, Material Fonts & Icons, Google "End-to-end thinking."
"Kevin brought maturity, perspective, and passion to evolving our software and hardware products... mapping the user journey from first sight to first workout."
VP of Product, Katalyst Fitness "The first person I'd call."
"If I were starting a company and needed a kick-ass designer, Kevin would be the first person I’d call. I was especially impressed with how creative and thorough Kevin is... One of the best designers I’ve worked with at Google."
Director of Product Management, Google / About
Close to the work, far from politics.
I started as a copywriter at a tiny but massively creative Japanese design studio, moved into design, and ended up running a bilingual design practice as a creative director at a chaotic Tokyo agency. Back stateside I ran both product and design at two camera companies, did time on big teams at Google, Adobe, Amazon, and Microsoft, and went in-house at GoPro to design a new camera's entire experience from zero. Hold Fast Studio has been running since 2019.
Seattle, then Tokyo, then Hokkaido, now Bend, Oregon. I grew up on skateboarding, snowboarding, and punk rock, and never outgrew any of it. There is usually a camera within reach.
