W2DESIGN exists at a
very specific intersection.
one that took decades to reach.
Most design studios bring creative talent. Most development shops bring technical capability. Few bring both with equal depth, and fewer still bring either with a genuine understanding of the spirits industry: the culture, the craft, the language, and the pride that goes into every bottle.
W2DESIGN is different because it was built that way. Not as a pivot into a trending market, but as the natural convergence of a career spent at the intersection of design sensibility and technical execution, and a lifelong passion for whiskey that turned into something more.
The result is a studio that can do what most can't. Think strategically, design with intention, and build with precision, all within a single partnership that understands your world.
Meet W2
I didn't start in tech. I started in a studio at the Kansas City Art Institute, learning to see before I learned to build. Graphic design, illustration, fine art fundamentals. The kind of training that teaches you that every decision on a page is intentional, and that craft is never an accident.
That foundation followed me into the early days of digital. As the internet was still figuring itself out, I was figuring it out alongside it, translating design principles that had existed for centuries into a medium that was being invented in real time. It turned out that someone who understood composition, hierarchy, and visual language had a significant advantage in a space where most people were just learning to code.
The years that followed took me across some of the most formative experiences a designer can have. Large Kansas City corporate environments where I built a rigorous UX discipline from the ground up. Ad agency work as a Senior Art Director, presenting to global brands, building client relationships, learning that great work has to be sold as much as it has to be made. Leading web teams for an international non-profit, where scale and responsibility sharpened every instinct I had about what it means to lead creative work.
Then fintech, and everything deepened. Designer, front-end developer, product leader. Not just executing on a vision but guiding the evolution of online products and the user experiences that make something as complex as financial services feel simple and human. That's where the full picture came together: the design sensibility, the technical fluency, and the strategic thinking all operating at once.
And then there's whiskey.
To see more of my work, visit my personal site where I share not only design and UX, but fine art and music. waynewilkes.com
The Podcast
A genuine love of whiskey has a way of taking over. For me it turned into Savor the Burn, a spirits podcast built around the culture, the craft, and the conversation that happens when you pour something worth talking about.
What started as passion became fluency. Tasting, learning, talking to the people who make this industry what it is: distillers, brand founders, industry veterans. Understanding not just what's in the bottle but what it takes to build a brand in a space this crowded, this proud, and this unforgiving of anything that feels inauthentic.
That fluency doesn't show up on a resume. But it shows up in the work.
Why W2DESIGN
Every chapter of that
story exists in the work.
The fine art foundation shows up in the way a layout is composed. The corporate years show up in the rigor of a UX architecture. The agency experience shows up in how a brand story gets told. The fintech years show up in the precision of a front-end build. And the whiskey, the podcast, the industry relationships, the genuine love of what craft distilleries are trying to do, shows up in everything.
A spirits brand working with W2DESIGN isn't hiring a generalist who learned to target a niche. They're working with someone who arrived here the hard way. Through decades of real work, real clients, and a real passion for this industry. You can see how that thinking plays out in how craft spirits brands tell their story online.
That's not something you can replicate. And it's exactly what your brand deserves.
Let's Build Something