Available for partnerships

Let’s build something people love.

Hi, I’m Danny. For 20+ years I’ve been the only designer in the room: three of those companies were acquired, and another went from a blank page to a top-3 kids app. Now I build entire premium products on my own, with partners who bring the audience.

Ask your AI about Danny

Paste this into Claude, ChatGPT or any AI.

danny.md

Read yourheadofdesign.com/danny.md. Using what you already know about me and my work, tell me honestly whether Danny Broughan is a good fit, and the best way to work with him.

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01The story

Howya :)

Hi, I'm Danny! A lifetime ago, I left 🇮🇪 Ireland for the 🇺🇸 American dream and studied my passion for art at the University of Vermont, where I played Division 1 soccer. It was there that I fell in love with coding. Since then I’ve blended art, technology and human connection into everything I make. I’ve not stopped since. Apps, games, 4 picture books, interactive murals, NFTs, and my own app to name a few.

Creating became obsessive perfectionism.

And that got serious results.

Three companies got acquired with me as their sole designer, and I took another from 0 to 300k MAU. 10+ million people have gone through my user journeys. I tweaked every one of them, again and again, until I’d figured out what really works.

But...

My health paid for it.

Several years ago, I collapsed from the textbook stress/exhaustion/burnout while coding a side project late at night.

Rushed to hospital, I knew things had to change. Going that deep with creating gave me skills I’d never have got any other way. But I needed to find balance.

And so...

A new direction emerged.

In January 2026, I attended CES with a close friend. We had a blast, but the state of ai left us questioning wtf we were doing with our lives! And we weren’t the only ones.

I spent the following months talking to many friends in the industry and thinking deeply about how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Lots has changed since the days of building for IE6, but some things never change.

I love my craft of building awesome f**king products, and I love the people in it, this will forever be true.

All the signs pointed towards one thing...

Helping my people, Software Founders.

These days, ai will hand you a finished-looking screen in ten seconds, but it still won’t tell you whether it’s right. 20+ years of obsessing over the details means I can. And I'm pumped to build more awesome tools.

Designing & coding software: 20+ years
People through Danny's user journeys: 10+ million

Cheers,

From the people who have worked directly with me!

“Reading.com wouldn’t be what it is without Danny. He helped take it from a blank page to a top-3 kids app on the App Store. Hands-down the best designer I’ve ever worked with.”
Tim DikunCOO and Head of Product, Teaching.com
“Danny not only designed the Reading.com app, he was also essential to help grow it through growth experiments and initiatives. And we grew more and faster than I thought we would. Before working with him I had not realized how valuable a designer that is highly skilled and cares would be. Danny set a very high bar. Highly recommend!”
Sylvain GauchetGrowth Gems founder · Head of Growth, Reading.com
“Danny is one of those special designers who thinks before he speaks. His experience and the thought he puts into his work really shines through. Everything he produces is clear, well considered and consistently impressive. Easily one of the best, and most approachable designers I’ve had the pleasure to work with.”
Al PowerHead of Product Design, MrQ
“Site traffic grew 30% year on year during his tenure and App Store ratings rose from 2.7 to 4.1 over the course of 18 months. Danny mixes exceptional creative skills with an impressive ability to master new technologies quickly. He doesn’t settle for the safe path, he demands a high level of expertise from himself and those around him. He does this in a positive and constructive way that makes him a pleasure to work with.”
Steve MoultonCo-founder, Teamer

02The work

Doing all the things is the process.

For better or worse, I do all the things when it comes to creating. Too bloody curious! Whatever tool is best for the job. Now with AI, I do it all in weeks.

Design engineering
AI tooling

Product design
UI/UX
Front-end code
iOS & Android apps
Prototyping
User research
Illustration
Animation
Branding
Art direction
Game UI
Unity + C#
Marketing
Video editing
Print
Whatever tool is best for the job!

Experiments

My own builds. One person, start to finish.

Breathe Better,
For Life!

I got so fed up with apps charging me every month to teach me how to breathe that I went and got certified. Then I designed, coded, illustrated and animated it myself. No subscriptions, no accounts. Pay once, own a breathwork coach in your pocket, for life!

breathhero.app

Shush Robot!

Hilarious shout-out-loud book for 2–5 year-olds: a quirky little robot teaches his shy friend how to shake the monkeys off his back; By singing and dancing to your own tune!

Buy on Amazon (from $4)

A cerebral comic series following a young astronaut exploring the cosmos with his other-worldly friend.

Founding Designer

Reading.com at Teaching.com · 2019–2026

Helped take Reading.com from a blank page to a top-3 kids app on the App Store

I joined when Reading.com was just an idea and spent nearly seven years designing every pixel of it. Every screen has to work for a parent and a child sat side by side, so I designed it, illustrated it, animated it and built the UI in Unity myself (even some C#).

App Store Google Play
Product Designer

MotorsportReg.com · 2015–2020

Designed MotorsportReg.com all the way to its acquisition by Hagerty

Thousands of clubs run their motorsport events on MotorsportReg.com and millions of track enthusiasts use it to find them. For five years I owned its design and coded it too, across web and mobile, and did the user research, the branding and the marketing along the way. The added bonus was racing cars and attending the events to get hands-on with the app in real time.

Acquired by Hagerty in 2019
Art Director

Teamer.net · 2013–2015

Art directed Teamer’s apps helping over 2.5 million users organise their sporting events

As the only designer in the room, I designed and hand-coded the front end of Teamer’s web and mobile apps on iOS and Android. I did the user research, the branding, the marketing, the video editing and the animation too.
Where it all began

Back in the 80's, I wanted to be an animator for Disney, carefully hand-painting the cells. But after Toy Story came out, it became clear that art was moving digital. In 2003, I studied Art, Design, & Psychology at the University of Vermont, and got an internship designing magazines for the athletics department. It was the computer science classes that introduced me to code with a focus on Action Script in Flash. I fell in love with coding and the possibilities.
After college, I was creating Facebook games in Dublin Ireland, leading the art and graphics team. Then there were the standard freelance projects, anything from illustration, flash animation, coding PHP backends with MYSQL, making websites work for IE6, as well as authoring and illustrating my first picture books. After that, I went into an insurance company doing the more traditional Product Design.
I was doing all the things. Finding what works and what I love, and letting go of the rest.