James Hodge

I'm a full-stack creative who speaks design, code, and business fluently - turning startup visions into products that actually work and scale.

✨ The Hybrid Creative Who Connects the Dots ✨

Hey, I’m James and if you’re reading this, you’re probably trying to solve a problem I’ve already wrestled with.

🧩 Maybe your design and dev teams aren’t speaking the same language.
🚀 Maybe you’ve got a brilliant product idea but no clear path to MVP.
💔 Maybe you’ve launched... but your UX is bleeding users and you can’t figure out why.

I’ve spent 10+ years developing and designing and another 10 years becoming the bridge most companies don’t realise they’re missing.

💡 Here’s My Unfair Advantage
I design.
I code.
I understand complex backend architecture.

This isn’t a résumé flex — it’s why I can walk into a room of designers, developers, and stakeholders and actually align them.
Most people speak one of those languages.
I speak all three.
And more importantly — I translate between them.

🎯 The Outcome?
✅ Everyone moves in the same direction.
✅ Design decisions that developers can actually build.
✅ Technical solutions users actually want.
✅ Business goals that don’t compromise user experience.

🔥 What I’ve Been Building Lately
For the past five years, I’ve worked as an independent principal designer, helping startups and SMEs through the stages where most fail:

Launch. Growth. Repositioning.

I’ve:
✨ Led end-to-end brand development and MVP design for visionary founders.
✨ Directed system-level product branding that keeps users coming back.
✨ Rebuilt UX/UI for platforms held back by friction no one could quite name.

Industries I’ve shaped:
SaaS B2B | 🏠 PropTech | 💆 HeathTech | 🎮 iGaming | 📱 MobileTech

Different industries. Same challenge:
➡️ Make something people actually want to use, while building a business that can scale.

⚙️ The Philosophy
I don’t do design theatre — those pretty mockups that crumble when engineering starts, or “revolutionary” rebrands that don’t move a single metric.

Everything I create has to pass three tests:
1️⃣ Does it work for users? (Human-centred, not founder-centred.)
2️⃣ Can it actually be built? (No tech-debt time bombs.)
3️⃣ Does it serve business goals? (Pretty is pointless if it doesn’t convert.)

I’m a systems thinker.
I see the whole ecosystem.

• how onboarding flows into activation,
• how your subscription model impacts retention,
• how your design system scales when your team doubles.
  The full lifecycle of your user within your product.
  
  💬 Why I’m Here
  Because I genuinely want to help founders build things that matter.
  Too many brilliant ideas die in the gap between vision and execution.
  Too many products launch with avoidable friction.
  Too many teams burn resources on redesigns that shouldn’t have been needed.
  
  So if you’re building something real and you need someone who can:
  Think strategically, design with purpose, build practically, think logically and lead cross-functionally
  
  💭 Let’s talk.
  No obligation. No sales pitch.
  Just an honest conversation about how I can help you avoid the expensive mistakes I’ve seen others make.
  
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  📧 james@rightframe.studio
  🌐 james.rightframe.studio
  💼 linkedin.com/in/jdshodge
  Based in sunny Durban, South Africa
• working remotely with startups worldwide.

Hello, I am James a strategic product designer that helps SaaS founders and product teams make the right decisions before they build.

I help bridge insight and execution - validating assumptions, simplifying complexity, and designing systems that scale clarity, not chaos.

Every project ends with proof, not deliverables. Because good design isn’t just how it looks - it’s how confidently you move forward.

- Clarity before code. Direction before design.