Profile · Nº 001 Valladolid → Atlanta Edition 2026

A designer who
reads the road.

Vicente Hernaiz grew up in a family of artists and designers, raced bicycles across Europe for five years — three of them as a pro — and came back to the drawing board with a product team's mindset. This is the long version.

Vicente Hernaiz — portrait
Vicente, 2026 Atlanta, US
Vicente racing in Portugal, Radio Popular Paredes Boavista
Fig. 01 Racing in Portugal with Radio Popular Paredes Boavista, 2022.

I define myself as a UX and product designer, but the honest answer is broader than that. I think like a product team. I read research, sketch interfaces, write code, watch the analytics, and pull on whichever thread the project needs next. The thread usually ties back to the same obsession: how businesses, people, and the human mind actually work when nobody's looking.

I grew up watching my father run a graphic design studio for forty years. Illustrator and Photoshop were on the family computer before I was ten. By fifteen I was charging for design work. Somewhere between those years I also became a professional cyclist, which is a less linear story.

Ch. 01

Valladolid, 1998

I was born on November 28th, 1998, in Valladolid, Spain. Design is genuinely in my DNA — my father has four decades in graphic design and my family is full of artists and designers. My earliest memory of a screen is him teaching me how layers work in Photoshop. By thirteen I was already running my own small design business: wraps and stickers for bikes and motorcycles, charging local riders, and learning the whole loop from brief to final vinyl.

High school was the science track, and from there I moved into two years of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Valladolid, which I took on while already racing at the under‑23 level, books on the desk and training rides in between lectures. I actually liked engineering. It gave me a way of thinking I still rely on: three advanced maths courses, object‑oriented programming and C++, three physics courses, technical drawing, material science, material resistance, business and economics, and a healthy dose of statistics and how organisations are structured.

But the more I studied it, the more honest I had to be with myself: what I really loved was making things. I wasn't wired as a mechanical engineer, I was wired as an industrial designer. I wanted to sketch the object, choose the material, think about how someone would hold it, then hand the drawings to engineering, not the other way around. The degree didn't go to waste. It taught me to reason about physics, maths, materials, business, and statistics, and it's exactly why I can now sit between designers, engineers, and stakeholders without missing a beat.

Aerial view of Valladolid, Spain — Vicente's hometown
Downtown Valladolid, Spain — Plaza Mayor at street level
Fig. 02 — Valladolid, Spain. Hometown, from above and at street level.

“Design without data is decoration. You should think not only in design.”

— Jorge Jiménez Rolo, my mentor — SEO manager at Flat 101 and director of Behavioral Investigation.
“This is what I taught Vicente.”
Ch. 02

The detour, on two wheels.

When I turned pro in 2020 I stepped away from the engineering degree, but never from the drawing board. Between 2020 and 2023 — three years as a professional — I raced for Eolo‑Kometa (Alberto Contador's team), Fundación Manuela, and Radio Popular Paredes Boavista across Spain, Italy, Portugal, and most of Europe, including world championships. In parallel I kept studying design because I couldn't not: signage and infographic courses at ESI Valladolid, web‑design courses, client work, side projects. Passion, not plan.

Pro cycling is less about legs and more about reading the situation. The break goes at kilometre 40. The wind shifts at kilometre 60. Someone crashes, and you have half a second to decide whether to brake or thread through. You learn to make decisions with incomplete information, hold a plan loosely, and adapt without panicking. That is, as it turns out, the job description of a product designer.

Vicente racing for Eolo-Kometa in Italy
Fig. 03 — Eolo-Kometa, Italy, 2021.
Ch. 03

The pivot to UX.

A contract didn't come through in 2023, and I spent the next year going all-in on design. Brandings. Car wrappings (a genuine obsession of mine). Websites. Packaging. 3D printing. During that year I met Jorge Jiménez Rolo, SEO, CRO, and behavioural manager at Flat 101, one of Spain's biggest firms in CRO and UX, and now a mentor and friend.

Jorge showed me the data side of design. I was already three-quarters through the Google UX Certificate and halfway through Bootcamps in SEO and CRO at Webpositer. UX stopped feeling like a niche and started feeling like the thing that tied everything I had already been doing, the engineering, the branding, the business instinct, into a single practice.

I design the way I used to race:
read the road, hold the plan loosely, keep moving.

Ch. 04

Atlanta, now.

SCAD's cycling coach called in the summer of 2024 and offered me an athletic scholarship to study and race in Atlanta. I said yes the same day. I'm now a sophomore on the BFA UX Design program with a current 4.0 over 4.0, minoring in Industrial Design, and still racing for SCAD as an athletic-scholarship athlete.

Between classes I work on three things. Beloo, a cycling safety app I've taken from audit to a full redesign. Housing Help, a 15-week SCADpro collaboration with Deloitte and HUD where I'm prototyping lead. And Veloque, my own luxury cycling maison, 27 garments, a brand book, and an e-commerce system, currently waiting on investment to begin production.

The short CV.

Full version on the experience page or in the resume.

  1. 2026 —

    Prototyping & Design Systems Lead

    SCADpro × Deloitte · Housing Help for HUD
    Atlanta
  2. 2024 —

    BFA UX Design · Industrial Design minor

    SCAD · Athletic scholarship · 4.0 major GPA
    Atlanta
  3. 2024 —

    UX Designer · Contract

    Beloo — cycling safety app, audit → IA → UI
    Remote · ES
  4. 2023 —

    SEO / CRO Mentee · personal mentorship

    Under Jorge J. Rolo — SEO manager at Flat 101
    Madrid · Valladolid
  5. 2023 —

    Freelance Designer

    Brand, web, packaging, car wrapping, 3D print
    ES · US
  6. 2020 —

    Professional Cyclist

    Eolo-Kometa · Fundación Manuela · Radio Popular Boavista
    Europe
  7. 2018 —

    Mechanical Engineering · 2 yr

    University of Valladolid
    Valladolid
Born
Valladolid, ES · Nov 1998
Based
Atlanta, US · since 2024
Languages
ES (native) · EN (fluent) · PT · IT · FR (conv.)
Studying
BFA UX Design · SCAD · current 4.0 over 4.0
Minoring
Industrial Design
Racing
Athlete for SCAD · scholarship
Looking for
Summer 2026 UX / Product internship

Where to next.

§ Primary — get in touch Let's talk. Open to summer 2026 UX / Product internships, freelance work, and collaborations. I reply within a day.
Vicente Hernaiz Atlanta · 2026
Portfolio coded with craftsmanship & Claude Code