Shawn Xiong
Art Director
Years in Field: 20
Based in: Calgary, Canada
Focus: Visual design, UI, branding, leadership
Approach: Accessibility, designed in
About Shawn
Twenty years leading the visual direction on schools, nonprofits, and mission-driven brands. My job is to make sure each design is cohesive, high quality, and tied to what the client is trying to accomplish.
I'm the Art Director at Morweb. My day to day is leading the visual side of every project. That means setting the visual direction, reviewing work across the team, and making sure each design lands the way it's supposed to.
I've spent 20 years in design, working across visual design, UI, branding, and team leadership. Recent work includes Engineers Without Borders USA, Mercy USA, MEND Poverty, San Francisco School, Dakota Wesleyan University, Zaytuna College, and Alverno College.
Accessibility is not something you add after a site is live. It is something you design in from the first sketch. A site that looks beautiful but is hard to read or hard to navigate is not actually doing its job.
— Shawn Xiong, Art Director
Too many teams treat WCAG compliance as a final checklist. The result is a site that looks polished on the surface but has text that is hard to read, menus that are confusing, and pages that lock people out. For schools and nonprofits, that is a real problem — inclusion is supposed to be the point, not the afterthought.
I'm passionate about nonprofit web design because helping nonprofits thrive helps the communities behind them. A well-designed website can amplify a mission, increase donations, and reach more people who need help. That's the part of the work I keep coming back to.
Specializations
- Visual design
- UI design
- Brand identity
- Art direction
- Design systems
- Accessible design
- Visual hierarchy
- Team leadership
