How Ben Barry Became One of The Most Influential Designers in Tech
Meet Ben Barry, the designer behind Facebook's early visual culture, OpenAI design lead, and the Cursor IDE logo.
Early Life
Barry grew up in Texas.
He went to the University of North Texas and graduated in 2007 with a degree in Communication Design. After, he worked at a design and screen printing shop called The Decoder Ring. He got his start working on logos and packaging, and the experience helped him develop his eye for printing.
Ben was one of the first communication designers to join Facebook, based in California, when the company was already hundreds of people strong. He worked on developing an internal culture, voice, and brand.
Iconic Works
Barry and Everett Katigbak spent their hackathon breaks printing t-shirts and posters. They eventually got a few local screen printers to burn some screens for them on the side, and a small print shop was born in a warehouse on the Facebook campus, running day and night over the weekend.
The project eventually became known as the Facebook Analog Research Laboratory, or ARL, and served as an in-house print shop and art collective embedded within the culture of the company. Barry's posters were hung around the office, including one signed by President Obama. He worked on projects for the new Facebook campus and materials for the company's f8 developer conference.
He also worked on Facebook's iconic "f" favicon logo.
He designed the OpenAI blossom logo with Ludwig Pettersson, representing a product that has influenced the world and changed the trajectory of the human race.
He also created the Cursor Cube AI IDE logo. This shows his influence on the design philosophy of the tech world, shaping early and modern internet design.
In his free time, Barry has worked on his own design projects. He released a book, One Hundred Patterns, and writes about technology and design on his blog, Active Matrix.
Nonlinear
Ben Barry is Nonlinear's founding partner. Nonlinear is a small visual design studio focused on technology, science, art, architecture, politics, ecology, and social good.
From there, he moved to his previous position as design director at OpenAI, leading the visual design for projects such as Jukebox.