About · Joelson Leal

I'm a product designer. I lead design at hello.cv, a career platform where an AI agent works your job search for you, and I help run .cv, Cabo Verde's national domain, including ID.CV, its decentralised identity layer. Before that I was the founding designer at Kriolish, taking Cabo Verdean Creole's learning platform from no brand and no revenue to both, and I founded Kriolus Who Design, a community for a small country's design talent. Along the way: an MSc in UX Engineering at Goldsmiths as a Chevening Scholar, and identity research published at CHI 2026. I'm based near Paris; home is Tarrafal, Cabo Verde.

Joelson smiling in a park in golden-hour light

Joelson at graduation with Professor Yoram Chisik, program director at the University of London, with the Cabo Verdean flag over his shoulders

Joelson presenting the KYC research results at university, in front of a usability testing slide

Joelson strolling the streets of Notting Hill in London, colourful houses behind him

joelsondotcvjust me

Kriolish

Cabo Verdean Creole is spoken by over a million people, but for most of its history it lived only in voices: no standard learning tools, thin digital presence. Kriolish is my answer, a crowdsourced platform where the community translates, corrects, and teaches its own language.

The interesting design problem is trust and quality without an authority. Who decides a translation is right when there's no official dictionary behind it? We treat it the way good communities treat knowledge (contributions, review, reputation), so the language gets documented by the people who actually speak it.

It's the project that taught me the most about designing for a community rather than a user base, and it's why "purpose" on this page isn't decoration. kriolish.com

Edmar and Joelson smiling together in London — Edmar (Founder and CEO of Kriolish) and I in London, for ATS London (Jun, 2025)

Kriolus Who Design

I also founded Kriolus Who Design, a community for Cabo Verdean designers: talks, showcases, and a place for a small country's design talent to find each other. Cabo Verde has more designers than it has design jobs; the community exists so the talent compounds instead of scattering.

Between Kriolish and Kriolus, the pattern is the same: I like building ecosystems, not just products.

Languages

Don't take my word for it. Hover a language and hear me speak it.

Work experience

Head of Designhello.cv2025 – Present
Senior Product DesignerKriolish2022 – Present
VP of Product Operationsola.cv2024
Design & Innovation ManagerCabo Verde Digital2021 – 2023
Advisor, Branding & MarketingMinistry of Culture and Creative Industries2019 – 2021
Lead Product DesignerBonako2016 – 2019

Stack

A full-stack, AI-native product design workflow: research, design, and shipped code in one loop.

Writing

Essays and notes on design, craft and building.