About

I have a lot to say about design practice and philosophy. It’s occupied a bulk share of my brain space for over half my life. But in this case, I’ll let some of the amazing people I’ve been blessed to worked with over the years do the talking for me…

David Warner | Global Creative Director — Branding, Marketing, Experience Design
Ben and I worked together over the span of a year. In that time he proved to be a talented and versatile creative leader. Always mindful of the collective effort that drives innovation, Ben is fantastic at fostering a collaborative and creative culture while balancing human-centered strategies and commercial dynamics. Ben is a tireless champion of well crafted ideas and delivering smart product and service solutions.

Ricky Hennesy | AI & Data Science @ Google Cloud
Ben is an incredibly talented and thoughtful design leader. We worked together at Fjord and Accenture for three years, tackling some of our clients' toughest challenges. While at Fjord, Ben led some of the largest, most complex projects and has made it look easy. His attention to detail and great leadership skills kept teams motivated and delivering top notch work. As a designer or a leader, Ben would be a great addition to any team.

Tim Irvine | Product and Experience Design Leader, Accenture Song
To say that Ben Tautfest has a strong shoe game is an understatement, but that's not why we're here. I was fortunate to work with Ben closely over multiple years following the acquisition of the Austin studio into Fjord. I always found Ben to be a passionate crusader for quality of craft and attention to details. As Charles Eames said, "The details aren't the details. They make the design." Ben gets that and champions it at every turn. As a complement to that insistence on quality, Ben also regularly demonstrated a desire to learn about the business impact of our decisions - something that made him a more potent design director.

Greg Small | Director, Marketing Advisory at KPMG
I have had the pleasure of working wit Ben multiple times during my tenure at Accenture and he is my go-to Design Director for net new product creation endeavors across multiple industries. Ben is creative and brings the imaginative leadership capabilities that allow a design team to delight our clients, while also providing a systems thinking discipline that facilitates turning the “art of the possible” into a solid deliverable product. The resulting design libraries and product feature catalogs also allow us to deliver quality and then transition the product and the future design/development capability to the client. I highly recommend Ben and greatly enjoy leading teams with him.