I’m Manu.


Product Designer flowing between brand & business.
II bring a playful, craft-first mindset to tech, shaped by my background in graphic design and the years I spent running my own boutique studio. That visual foundation keeps my product work tuned into culture, grounded in visual craft, and designed for real human behavior.

Right now, I’m shaping the homepage and navigation experience for Europe’s largest fashion platform. My focus is turning Zalando's massive, complex assortment into clear, intuitive, and joyful discovery journeys across web and app. I’m just as happy building quick, messy prototypes as I am using design strategy to guide major business decisions. 

At work (as in life) I stay curious, pay attention to small details, and adapt quickly. I still firmly believe that the best design solutions don't come from staring at Figma all day, but from stepping away from the screen and truly listening.


When I’m not working you’ll find me hanging out with my dog in Berlin, attempting a complex Ottolenghi recipe or helping friends bringing their ideas to life.

Brand & visual craft

NGL: Graphic design will always be my passion. From establishing to scaling accessible Design Systems, I ensure that aesthetics and functional engineering consistency work in total harmony. Good design to me is a language I am fluent at.  I jumped early on the AI train and incorporated agentic & vibe coding into my work quite organically. 



Product strategy fluency

I always had this deep fascination for human psychology and an intuitive understanding of user behaviour. To me, business metrics met with genuine customer needs is poetry. Give me complex business challenges and I’ll design and help build experiences people actually want to interact with.



Strategic articulation

I am comfortable presenting data-backed narratives to senior leadership, using research and metrics to defend design choices. For me, cultivating strong, collaborative relationships is key and still the most reliable way to break silos and secure the trust one needs to keep the team moving forward.


Fashion & Lifestyle Directory:
a place to find everything

Heart says yes:
a multi-million € Black Friday

Cooler Future:
an indie soul to green Fintech

Check out my Graphic Design work, too.


© 2026 Manuela dos Santos
Brewed in Berlin, mit Liebe gemacht.