Hi, I'm Rex Chekal, a product and brand designer with 20+ years of experience

Software has spent decades in a commodity race to build one tool for millions. Innovation was sacrificed to the bottom line, and software became generic and blind to personal needs.

AI can make this worse. Making it better takes taste and judgment: knowing what's worth building and not settling for what AI gives you. Without experience solutions become slop.

I've made complicated things clear for 20 years, from newsroom deadlines to mobile apps and enterprise software. I've always stayed ahead of the technological curve.

Today I help businesses design, build and integrate with AI to make software that serves them without sacrifice.

Available for work December 2026

Product design work

As principal product designer at TXI, I was typically the sole designer working end to end on projects, from discovery and product strategy through design and handoff.

• Digital therapeuticsDesigning data as the feature to drive behavioral changeA recovery device only works if patients keep using it.Theragen
• Digital therapeuticsA chatbot that turns a symptom diary into a conversationPeople avoid logging symptoms they're embarrassed to talk about.Renalis Health
• Health and fitnessCustom routines as a recipe for winning new usersPhysical therapy apps assumed you were already in pain.React Physical Therapy
• Home careA home care app with shared digital notesHome care still ran on paper.Tend
• ManufacturingAn IoT app that warns customers when storage conditions go out of rangeCustomers needed a warning before storage conditions ruined their goods.Dickson
• CPGTeaching a Fortune 500 company to invent in a weekA food company wanted to sell what it throws away. The crisp hit its Indiegogo goal in three days.Tyson Foods
• WholesaleA marketplace for landscape plants, sizes and prices in one placeA 100-year-old plant wholesaler needed to disrupt itself before someone else did.LandscapeHub
• EducationA text-message chatbot that matches students to leadership programsStudents wouldn't look up from their phones to find leadership programs.Rice University
• Civic techAn accessible voting app that works for every voterVoting is harder when you have a disability. Registered users grew 500% after launch, and the app won a silver Anthem Award.Brink
• Fitness equipmentAn off-the-shelf sales app and a new website, scoped to the deadlineA fitness equipment maker had only weeks to launch a website and a sales app.Keiser

Experience

• 2016–nowIndependentFractional design lead for product and brand
• 2014–2025TXIPrincipal product designer, creative director and director of digital strategy
• 2014Chicago Sun-TimesCreative director
• 2013Grid Chicago business magazineArt director
• 2007–2013RedEye, Chicago TribuneDesigner, then launch editor of the iPad edition
• 2005–2007The Tribune, McClatchyPage designer

Skills

• Product design
• Brand and identity
• UX research
• Design sprints
• Prototyping with AI
• Custom AI tools for small businesses

Press

• Whole body, whole mind: The power of holistic wellnessPanel · youtube.com
• Representing TXI at the Health 2.0 ConferenceVideo interview · youtube.com
• Product innovation: Why end users can't be afterthoughts in 2023medcitynews.com
• Product innovation in medtechtodaysmedicaldevelopments.com
• How to show empathy through digital health appsmedicaldesignandoutsourcing.com
• Better product innovation starts with user-centric researchPodcast · productvoices.com
• Navigating products to market without overspendInterview · techhq.com
• Delivering products without overspend: Valuable lessons from creativesInterview · techhq.com
• How to create digital health apps that serve as useful tools, not unnecessary workmedcitynews.com