Kristofer Layon is a product manager, designer, and educator. Kris divides his time between managing mobile products for Capella Education Company, doing independent design and development projects for the web and mobile platforms, and writing books and articles for New Riders, Peachpit Press, A List Apart, and others.
Kris’s product design career began in graphic design in the early 1990s, and in 1996 he started designing for the web. Since then, he has designed web sites for engineers, urban planners, city governments, artists, musicians, retailers, the National Park Service, and over 30 higher education clients. In addition to designing web sites, Kris has taught design and typography in the University of Minnesota’s College of Design, where he also worked as an academic advisor. And from 2008-2011, he was the founding director of MinneWebCon, Minnesota’s Web Conference.
Kris has an MFA in interactive design from the University of Minnesota, and a BA in German and pre-architecture from Saint Olaf College. He writes about the web, speaks about design and product management, and teaches workshops on mobile design (web, iOS, and Android). He lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where you can also find him skiing in the winter and running in the summer. Follow Kris on Twitter, where he enjoys commenting on design and reveals his addiction to Instagram.
