About
Daniel Scrivner
Daniel Scrivner is VP of Design at Aleph and the founder of Blackletter, an investment firm he started in 2015. Before Aleph, he was VP of Design at Dojo, the maker of ClassDojo, and Head of Design at Square and Digit, after starting his career as a designer at Apple. He also co-founded Ligature, the design VC, and writes about history's greatest entrepreneurs and investors at danielscrivner.com.
- NowVP of Design, Aleph
- FoundedBlackletter in 2015; co-founded Ligature, the design VC
- PreviouslyDojo, Tiny, Digit, Tilt, Block, Apple
By the numbers
- 51M
More than 51 million kids, families and teachers use ClassDojo every month, in 180 countries.¹
- $1.25B
ClassDojo’s valuation at its Tencent-led Series D.² It is a top 100 Y Combinator company.³
- 3 to 50
How far I grew Square’s design team. The company went public on the NYSE in 2015.⁴
- $500M to $3B
Savings by Digit members during my time there. By 2021 they had saved more than $7B.⁵
- 300,000
More than 300,000 teams in more than 140 countries used Flow, which I led as CEO in Residence at Tiny.⁶
- 58M
Monthly transacting actives on Cash App in Q3 2025. Cash App grew out of early designs and explorations I led at Square.⁷
Experience
Leading design since 2008, from founding designer to a team of 50.
Role by role
Aleph
VP of Design
2026 to nowDojo, the maker of ClassDojo
VP of Design
2022 to 2026I led a design team of 35 as Dojo grew from a company building one product to one building five in parallel. I led a rethink of the ClassDojo app that brought those products into one home screen, refreshed the characters at the heart of the brand, added new ones (Sparky, Nova and Bandit), and built an in-house 3D team and a single 3D style used across every product. My teams also owned the game design, world and brand of Dojo Islands, and a family of more than 130 icons used across ClassDojo, Dojo Tutor, Dojo Sparks and Dojo Islands. In 2025 ClassDojo was named one of Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators.³
Tiny
CEO in Residence
2019 to 2022Andrew Wilkinson and Chris Sparling of Tiny asked me to run Flow, a team productivity app, as its CEO. I led the Flow team of 15 across design, product and engineering, and did all of the design work myself, redesigning and rebuilding the whole product over 18 months. After the relaunch, cancellations fell by roughly half and the business returned to growth.⁸ At the time, more than 300,000 teams used Flow, including Shopify, Axios, Harvard, Merck and Carhartt.⁶ I also acquired Boards for Tiny and led the design of Summit, a custom stencil typeface for Flow, with Jeremy Mickel.
Digit
Head of Design
2017 to 2019I led a design team of 5 and designed Digit’s brand and its automated savings app on iOS, Android and the web. During my time there, member savings grew from $500M to $3B. Digit went on to save members more than $7B before Oportun acquired it for $212M in 2021.⁵
Tilt (formerly Empower)
Founding Designer
2016 to 2017With former Sequoia partner Warren Hogarth, I defined Tilt’s look, feel and feature set before the company was even incorporated, then led every part of the app’s design through the 18 months to launch. As of 2026 Tilt has raised $174M from Sequoia, Initialized Capital, Icon Ventures and Quiet Capital, and it serves more than 3 million active subscribers.⁹
Block
Head of Design
2011 to 2016I joined Square at around 50 people and grew design from 3 to 50, a multidisciplinary team reporting to Jack Dorsey. I led design and direction for all of the early apps, including Square, Square Register, Square Wallet and Square Taxi, plus the early designs and explorations that became Cash App. Square was valued at about $6B in 2014¹⁰ and went public on the NYSE in November 2015.⁴ I’m also a named co-inventor, with Jack Dorsey and others, on a Square patent for mobile card processing.¹¹
Apple
Senior Designer
2008 to 2011On Apple’s marketing team I led the design of Apple’s first mobile website, bringing the whole of apple.com to phones: immersive galleries, video, comparison charts and the online store.
Selected engagements
Knit
Head of Design for its first 12 months, then design advisor for a year
With Square co-founder Randy Reddig, I designed the whole experience, from the charge card itself to the app.
Hummingbird
First Head of Design
I laid the foundation of its case-file product and refreshed its identity and wordmark with Jessica Hische. In 2021 Hummingbird raised a $30M Series B led by Battery Ventures.¹²
LendingHome
Rebrand for consumers
With founder and CEO Matt Humphrey, I led its rebrand: identity, product, website, collateral and its new office.
Apostrophe
Advisor, and designer of its wordmark
Advising and investing
Blackletter
Founder
2015 to nowBlackletter is an investment firm based in Boulder, Colorado.
Ligature
Co-founder
Ligature is the design VC.
Ziina
Design advisor and investor, via Ligature
Since 2021Ligature invested in Ziina’s seed round in 2021, when the YC-backed¹³ UAE payments company was five people. For five years I’ve met with founding designer Anton Badashov and the team in monthly creative reviews on product strategy, growth loops and design hiring. In September 2024 Ziina raised a $22M Series A led by Altos Ventures, bringing total funding to $30M,¹⁴ and it is valued at $450M after its latest round. Its design has won a Red Dot Design Award.¹⁵
Awards
Awards from D&AD, Cannes, One Show and Red Dot, for work I designed, led or advised on.
Sources
- ¹ Source: Y Combinator
- ² Source: Silicon Valley Invest Club
- ³ Source: ClassDojo
- ⁴ Source: Square
- ⁵ Source: Oportun
- ⁶ Source: Flow, via the Internet Archive
- ⁷ Source: Block, Q3 2025 shareholder letter
- ⁸ Source: The SaaS Podcast
- ⁹ Source: PR Newswire
- ¹⁰ Source: PCWorld
- ¹¹ Source: Google Patents, US 9,824,504 B2
- ¹² Source: Business Wire
- ¹³ Source: Y Combinator
- ¹⁴ Source: Wamda
- ¹⁵ Source: Red Dot