UX UI Designer, Photo Manipulation Designer, Developer – Rene Vigar

Hi there, my name is Rene and currently I am Head of UX UI Design based in Malta working with inovatiq. I gained various skills thanks to my past working experiences as a Designer and Developer based in Malta. Nowadays, I specialise in UX UI design, photo manipulation, logo design, branding and front-end development. I have worked with various well established companies in the I-gaming and Software development sector. Some of the companies I have worked for are:

Betsson
Betsafe
Rizk
Tipico
Redbet
Whitebet
Vinnarum (Winning Room)
Bertil
GFI Software

During my past experiences, I had always approached design through the dual lens of user experience and business impact. I create impactful design and engaging experiences, mainly focusing on growth, user experience, user interaction, UI and graphic design, aesthetics, user research, user analytics, KPIs and A/B Testing. I do love both design and code but in reality they are totally different areas. Through my fun career, I’ve learned 3 things about myself: I love working with people, I love solving problems for people and I love helping people when it comes to knowledge sharing and other things. I always do my best to create impactful design and engaging experiences, provided the best user experience, and easy user interaction, clean and minimal UI and graphic design.

Why I love photo manipulation?

I started off my career as a graphic designer and mainly I was designing banners all day long. Photo Manipulation needs some time because you create a concept / artwork using different stock assets. It is fun and you have to be creative. It allows you to brainstorm and put your creativity to work. Some examples of my photo manipulation designs.

Coding, love at first sight

I spent five years studying software engineering at school and strangely enough, my first job was design related. While studying, I was doing some freelance design work and that was the reason why I had a good portfolio to get my first design full time job. That being said, I did not feel right throwing away five years of coding.

I started looking into some basic front-end coding languages. At school I studied software engineering and now web development, so they were different. I started looking into tutorials about HTML and CSS and I found it very interesting.

After some courses on Udemy, I built my first portfolio using basic HTML and CSS but that wasn’t enough. I wanted something more.

I checked what content management systems were popular during that time. I was between WordPress and Drupal. WordPress had more online resourced compared to Drupal so I chose to go with WordPress. I took some courses on udemy and switched my website from basic HTML to a complete WordPress theme. This was fun!

After coding, UX UI

Being Jack of all trades, master of none is ok in some cases. After I was coding in Html, CSS, JQuery, PHP and Ruby (yes I know it’s a backend development language), I wanted to combine design with code. Designing banners and photo manipulation had no relation to coding, so then I put my interest in UX and UI.

UX and UI design gave me the opportunity to combine my coding knowledge with design. I could design a product and code it all by myself. UI design is creative to an extent but I cannot compare it to Photo manipulation. UI design is more related to the user interaction, how the product looks and feels. It is more linked to data. UI design can affect how the user interacts with a product or a website.

For me, UI Design has more value. Do not get me wrong, I still love creating a photo montage every now and then, but UI design give me a more satisfaction feeling.

For e.g. if you have a simple banner when it comes to design (not message) it won’t affect the user as long as the message is clear. On the other hand, if you have bad UX and UI design, it affects the user badly.

You can cope without a top notch banner, but you won’t cope with bad UX and UI design.

If you would like to see some of my work, you can do so by clicking here.

LinkedIn Testimonials

I have had the pleasure of working with Rene in three different workplaces - Evoke Gaming, Bettson Group, and Gaming Innovation Group. Rene is a very dedicated, self-motivated, trustworthy, creative, and hard-working employee who is able to work under pressure. He’s committed to quality, growth, and progress, and he inspires other team members to strive for the same. Without any doubt, Rene is a valuable asset to any team and I look forward to working with him yet again in the future.

Daniel Gingell Littlejohn Creative Design Team Lead at Gaming Innovation Group

I've known and worked with Rene for a few months but that was enough to understand what a rare asset he is. He's a dedicate individual with strong design skills in different disciplines, he is an excellent communicator and a natural team player. He is very easy to work with, trustworthy, loyal and efficient in what he does, his experience and skills makes him an invaluable asset in any company looking to strengthen its marketing team.

Neil Azzopardi Head of Product - Betpoint Group

I've worked with René for 16 months, where, as Design Manager, I had the pleasure of being his direct manager. He played an essential part in the design team for the Betsafe brand, one of Betsson Group's top brands. René's role was that of UI designer, where he was responsible for the design work for all Betsafe UI which spanned from the site, product areas like Casino, Live Casino, Sportsbook, Horse Racing, etc., as well as newsletters, and landing pages, both on desktop and mobile. Besides being a talented UI designer, René also possesses good front-end and back-end development skills. Although this was outside of his primary responsibilities of UI designer, he still continuously went out of his way and helped out with code whenever the need arose – this is a testament to his dedication. René's ownership and initiative was always exemplary. When handling assignments, he made sure to involve all stakeholders and collect data and feedback, which he used to make informed design and usability decisions. René would always seek to keep himself up-to-date with the latest design and usability trends and also strived to learn and improve continuously. He was also a great team player, an excellent communicator and was able to complete tasks with no supervision. René will undoubtedly be a valuable asset to any design team, and I look forward to working with him in the future.

Jeffrey Galea Digital Design Manager - Betsafe

I had the pleasure of working with Rene on a large project and he is a talented and skilled UI designer with an eye for detail and a pragmatic approach to finding solutions. His front-end development and graphic design background also comes in useful and he leverages them excellently in his UI work. Sad to see him move on to other opportunities, but I wish him the best of luck in his career. He will always be a great addition to any design team

Daniel Cassar Head of UX Design - Betsson

Rene is an fantastic graphic designer and frontend developer. During his time with Tipico Casino, he not only improved the look and feel of our CRM campaigns but implemented improvements to our web and email templates that were directly connected with improved campaign performance. He would be an asset to any organization within these two fields.

Miguel Augustin Head of Casino - Tipico

‘A yes can do attitude’ is the phrase that comes to mind when I think about Rene.” I had the pleasure of working with Rene almost a years at Bonnier Gaming, collaborating on several projects. Rene’s ability to juggle between designs, coding, being a team player and always being positive made him a pleasure to work with. I recommend him to anyone looking to hire a Graphic/Web Designer

Jani Piteri Group Creative Director - Bethard

Some of my hobbies

Get in touch

linkedin.com/in/renezammit

renevigar@gmail.com