INDEX
Design integrity for leaders building what matters.
Turn complexity into clear brands and products.
I’m the founder and creative director of Open Orbit, a design studio working on sustainable brands and products.
I work with leaders and their teams to bring perspectives together and make design decisions that align people and move the work forward.
Currently, I’m founding a permaculture design practice, Faba Origin, that supports landowners create thriving homesteads, digging my hands into soil and tending to plants and water flow.
Open Orbit believes that life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
Gabriel J-F Kroll
Founder of Open Orbit
Life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
View selected work
Speed Interviews
Award-winning video-call platform redefining how employers meet jobseekers
UX Consulting
·
·
·
Product Design
·
·
·
Permaculture Practitioner
I worked on the Swedish Public Employment Office’s Speed Interviews, a video-based recruitment service that grew by 900% in one year and connected over 800 employers and jobseekers each month, with around 30% of meetings leading to employment. During Covid-19, it became a vital tool for recruiting frontline workers remotely.
The service has been discontinued, but it remains one of my most meaningful projects.
Case Study Details
Speed Interviews
Award-winning video-call platform redefining how employers meet jobseekers
UX Consulting
·
·
·
Product Design
·
·
·
Permaculture Practitioner
While employed at
I worked on the Swedish Public Employment Office’s Speed Interviews, a video-based recruitment service that grew by 900% in one year and connected over 800 employers and jobseekers each month, with around 30% of meetings leading to employment. During Covid-19, it became a vital tool for recruiting frontline workers remotely.
The service has been discontinued, but it remains one of my most meaningful projects.
Case Study Details
Responsible innovation towards what matters.
Inviting perspectives, anchored in purpose, and iterating rapidly together.
Speed with intention
Do good, decisively
Offering
Brand Identity
Brand Sprint
Strategic brand clarity and direction.
Define the essence of your brand before any design begins.
Identity Foundations
Visual Identity for Early-Stage Brands
Logo, core visual language, and essential assets — built on real strategic insight.
Brand Identity System
A scalable identity for organizations in motion.
Create a coherent brand system that builds consistency and recognition across everything you communicate as you grow.
Product Design
Design Sprint
From scattered ideas to a clear, tested direction. Fast.
Align stakeholders, cut through uncertainty, and gain the insight you need to move forward with confidence.
Feature Design
One critical product challenge, designed end-to-end.
Turn a key product question into a clear, tested feature that moves your offering forward with intent.
Product Partnership
Long-term clarity for complex, evolving products.
Create the clarity and structure your product needs to evolve deliberately as complexity grows.
Featured Writing
Pop-Ups, Considered
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 15, 2025
I opened Adobe's color wheel yesterday to work on color harmony for a branding project.
Before I could do that, I had to acknowledge tracking, dismiss a promotion, consider an upgrade, and decide whether I wanted to log in with Google. All stacked neatly on top of each other.
Nothing was technically broken. And yet Adobe's color service wasn't what I saw.
Four layers of interruption before I could pick a color. That's when "death by pop-up" popped into my head.
Read More
The Kind of Brand Value We Notice, but Rarely Measure
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 6, 2025
In 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Black Friday with the words in bold: "Don't Buy This Jacket."
The ad detailed the environmental cost of making their bestselling R2 fleece: 135 liters of water, enough material for 20 plastic bags, and two-thirds of its weight in carbon emissions. Then it asked customers to reconsider whether they needed it at all.
By every traditional metric, this should have backfired. Instead, sales increased 30% the following year. Patagonia's brand value didn't show up in the ad's conversion rate or the campaign's ROI. It showed up in how people felt about the company before they ever clicked "buy."
That perception (trust, alignment, coherence) was working long before any spreadsheet could measure it.
Read More
Gabriel J-F Kroll
SHOWCASE
WRITING
STUDIO
Design integrity for leaders building what matters.
Turn complexity into clear brands and products.
I’m the founder and creative director of Open Orbit, a design studio working on sustainable brands and products.
I work with leaders and their teams to bring perspectives together and make design decisions that align people and move the work forward.
Currently, I’m founding a permaculture design practice, Faba Origin, that supports landowners create thriving homesteads, digging my hands into soil and tending to plants and water flow.
Open Orbit believes that life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
Gabriel J-F Kroll
Founder of Open Orbit
Life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
View selected work
Speed Interviews
Award-winning video-call platform redefining how employers meet jobseekers
UX Consulting
·
·
·
Product Design
·
·
·
Permaculture Practitioner
I worked on the Swedish Public Employment Office’s Speed Interviews, a video-based recruitment service that grew by 900% in one year and connected over 800 employers and jobseekers each month, with around 30% of meetings leading to employment. During Covid-19, it became a vital tool for recruiting frontline workers remotely.
The service has been discontinued, but it remains one of my most meaningful projects.
Case Study Details
Speed Interviews
Award-winning video-call platform redefining how employers meet jobseekers
UX Consulting
·
·
·
Product Design
·
·
·
Permaculture Practitioner
While employed at
I worked on the Swedish Public Employment Office’s Speed Interviews, a video-based recruitment service that grew by 900% in one year and connected over 800 employers and jobseekers each month, with around 30% of meetings leading to employment. During Covid-19, it became a vital tool for recruiting frontline workers remotely.
The service has been discontinued, but it remains one of my most meaningful projects.
Case Study Details
Responsible innovation towards what matters.
Inviting perspectives, anchored in purpose, and iterating rapidly together.
Speed with intention
Do good, decisively
Offering
Brand Identity
Brand Sprint
Strategic brand clarity and direction.
Define the essence of your brand before any design begins.
Identity Foundations
Visual Identity for Early-Stage Brands
Logo, core visual language, and essential assets — built on real strategic insight.
Brand Identity System
A scalable identity for organizations in motion.
Create a coherent brand system that builds consistency and recognition across everything you communicate as you grow.
Product Design
Design Sprint
From scattered ideas to a clear, tested direction. Fast.
Align stakeholders, cut through uncertainty, and gain the insight you need to move forward with confidence.
Feature Design
One critical product challenge, designed end-to-end.
Turn a key product question into a clear, tested feature that moves your offering forward with intent.
Product Partnership
Long-term clarity for complex, evolving products.
Create the clarity and structure your product needs to evolve deliberately as complexity grows.
Featured Writing
Pop-Ups, Considered
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 15, 2025
I opened Adobe's color wheel yesterday to work on color harmony for a branding project.
Before I could do that, I had to acknowledge tracking, dismiss a promotion, consider an upgrade, and decide whether I wanted to log in with Google. All stacked neatly on top of each other.
Nothing was technically broken. And yet Adobe's color service wasn't what I saw.
Four layers of interruption before I could pick a color. That's when "death by pop-up" popped into my head.
Read More
The Kind of Brand Value We Notice, but Rarely Measure
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 6, 2025
In 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Black Friday with the words in bold: "Don't Buy This Jacket."
The ad detailed the environmental cost of making their bestselling R2 fleece: 135 liters of water, enough material for 20 plastic bags, and two-thirds of its weight in carbon emissions. Then it asked customers to reconsider whether they needed it at all.
By every traditional metric, this should have backfired. Instead, sales increased 30% the following year. Patagonia's brand value didn't show up in the ad's conversion rate or the campaign's ROI. It showed up in how people felt about the company before they ever clicked "buy."
That perception (trust, alignment, coherence) was working long before any spreadsheet could measure it.
Read More
Gabriel J-F Kroll
SHOWCASE
WRITING
STUDIO
Design integrity for leaders building what matters.
Turn complexity into clear brands and products.
I’m the founder and creative director of Open Orbit, a design studio working on sustainable brands and products.
I work with leaders and their teams to bring perspectives together and make design decisions that align people and move the work forward.
Currently, I’m founding a permaculture design practice, Faba Origin, that supports landowners create thriving homesteads, digging my hands into soil and tending to plants and water flow.
Open Orbit believes that life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
Gabriel J-F Kroll
Founder of Open Orbit
Life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
View selected work
Speed Interviews
Award-winning video-call platform redefining how employers meet jobseekers
UX Consulting
·
·
·
Product Design
·
·
·
Permaculture Practitioner
I worked on the Swedish Public Employment Office’s Speed Interviews, a video-based recruitment service that grew by 900% in one year and connected over 800 employers and jobseekers each month, with around 30% of meetings leading to employment. During Covid-19, it became a vital tool for recruiting frontline workers remotely.
The service has been discontinued, but it remains one of my most meaningful projects.
Case Study Details
Speed Interviews
Award-winning video-call platform redefining how employers meet jobseekers
UX Consulting
·
·
·
Product Design
·
·
·
Permaculture Practitioner
While employed at
I worked on the Swedish Public Employment Office’s Speed Interviews, a video-based recruitment service that grew by 900% in one year and connected over 800 employers and jobseekers each month, with around 30% of meetings leading to employment. During Covid-19, it became a vital tool for recruiting frontline workers remotely.
The service has been discontinued, but it remains one of my most meaningful projects.
Case Study Details
Responsible innovation towards what matters.
Inviting perspectives, anchored in purpose, and iterating rapidly together.
Speed with intention
Do good, decisively
Responsibility that scales
Accessibility you can ship
Brands with clear purpose
Products that drive change
Offering
Brand Identity
Brand Sprint
Strategic brand clarity and direction.
Define the essence of your brand before any design begins.
Identity Foundations
Visual Identity for Early-Stage Brands
Logo, core visual language, and essential assets — built on real strategic insight.
Brand Identity System
A scalable identity for organizations in motion.
Create a coherent brand system that builds consistency and recognition across everything you communicate as you grow.
Product Design
Design Sprint
From scattered ideas to a clear, tested direction. Fast.
Align stakeholders, cut through uncertainty, and gain the insight you need to move forward with confidence.
Feature Design
One critical product challenge, designed end-to-end.
Turn a key product question into a clear, tested feature that moves your offering forward with intent.
Product Partnership
Long-term clarity for complex, evolving products.
Create the clarity and structure your product needs to evolve deliberately as complexity grows.
Featured Writing
Pop-Ups, Considered
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 15, 2025
I opened Adobe's color wheel yesterday to work on color harmony for a branding project.
Before I could do that, I had to acknowledge tracking, dismiss a promotion, consider an upgrade, and decide whether I wanted to log in with Google. All stacked neatly on top of each other.
Nothing was technically broken. And yet Adobe's color service wasn't what I saw.
Four layers of interruption before I could pick a color. That's when "death by pop-up" popped into my head.
Read More
The Kind of Brand Value We Notice, but Rarely Measure
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 6, 2025
In 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Black Friday with the words in bold: "Don't Buy This Jacket."
The ad detailed the environmental cost of making their bestselling R2 fleece: 135 liters of water, enough material for 20 plastic bags, and two-thirds of its weight in carbon emissions. Then it asked customers to reconsider whether they needed it at all.
By every traditional metric, this should have backfired. Instead, sales increased 30% the following year. Patagonia's brand value didn't show up in the ad's conversion rate or the campaign's ROI. It showed up in how people felt about the company before they ever clicked "buy."
That perception (trust, alignment, coherence) was working long before any spreadsheet could measure it.
Read More
Gabriel J-F Kroll
SHOWCASE
WRITING
STUDIO
Design integrity for leaders building what matters.
Turn complexity into clear brands and products.
I’m the founder and creative director of Open Orbit, a design studio working on sustainable brands and products.
I work with leaders and their teams to bring perspectives together and make design decisions that align people and move the work forward.
Currently, I’m founding a permaculture design practice, Faba Origin, that supports landowners create thriving homesteads, digging my hands into soil and tending to plants and water flow.
Open Orbit believes that life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
Gabriel J-F Kroll
Founder of Open Orbit
Life thrives through design that invites perspectives.
View selected work
Brand foundations for a permaculture design business
Brand Identity
·
·
·
Independent
·
·
·
Early-stage
Faba Origin is a permaculture design business in formation, serving homesteaders and land owners working with water, soil, plants, and land use.
I founded Faba Origin and led its brand identity through Open Orbit. The website was designed as a brand and story test, developing my permaculture platform, while the offering evolves through testing it with potential customers.
Case Study Details
While employed at
I worked with the Swedish Public Employment Office to design Speed Interviews — a digital recruitment service helping employers meet more candidates while giving jobseekers fairer opportunities beyond their CV. The service scaled nationally, supported remote recruitment during Covid-19, and informed how I approach system-level design and responsibility.
Case Study Details
Responsible innovation towards what matters.
Inviting perspectives, anchored in purpose, and iterating rapidly together.
Speed with intention
Do good, decisively
Offering
Brand Identity
Brand Sprint
Strategic brand clarity and direction.
Define the essence of your brand before any design begins.
Identity Foundations
Visual Identity for Early-Stage Brands
Logo, core visual language, and essential assets — built on real strategic insight.
Brand Identity System
A scalable identity for organizations in motion.
Create a coherent brand system that builds consistency and recognition across everything you communicate as you grow.
Product Design
Design Sprint
From scattered ideas to a clear, tested direction. Fast.
Align stakeholders, cut through uncertainty, and gain the insight you need to move forward with confidence.
Feature Design
One critical product challenge, designed end-to-end.
Turn a key product question into a clear, tested feature that moves your offering forward with intent.
Product Partnership
Long-term clarity for complex, evolving products.
Create the clarity and structure your product needs to evolve deliberately as complexity grows.
Featured Writing
Pop-Ups, Considered
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 15, 2025
I opened Adobe's color wheel yesterday to work on color harmony for a branding project.
Before I could do that, I had to acknowledge tracking, dismiss a promotion, consider an upgrade, and decide whether I wanted to log in with Google. All stacked neatly on top of each other.
Nothing was technically broken. And yet Adobe's color service wasn't what I saw.
Four layers of interruption before I could pick a color. That's when "death by pop-up" popped into my head.
Read More
The Kind of Brand Value We Notice, but Rarely Measure
Gabriel J-F Kroll
·
December 6, 2025
In 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Black Friday with the words in bold: "Don't Buy This Jacket."
The ad detailed the environmental cost of making their bestselling R2 fleece: 135 liters of water, enough material for 20 plastic bags, and two-thirds of its weight in carbon emissions. Then it asked customers to reconsider whether they needed it at all.
By every traditional metric, this should have backfired. Instead, sales increased 30% the following year. Patagonia's brand value didn't show up in the ad's conversion rate or the campaign's ROI. It showed up in how people felt about the company before they ever clicked "buy."
That perception (trust, alignment, coherence) was working long before any spreadsheet could measure it.
Read More