{
  "name": "Lucio Arseni",
  "title": "Design Technologist",
  "headline": "Design Technologist grounded in design thinking: notices a recurring friction, decomposes it, and builds, then teaches, a response. Expressed through two branches, a trained eye for image, brand, and user judgment, and real-time 3D and pipeline systems, both resting on a decade of hands-on 3D and VFX work.",
  "professional_tree": {
    "root": "Design thinking: noticing a recurring friction, decomposing it, and building, then teaching, a response. Practiced for years before it had this name.",
    "branches": {
      "creative_sensibility": {
        "description": "A trained eye, rooted in an illustration and fine-arts background, expressed as judgment: reading what an image, a brand, or a user actually needs before building anything. Shows up as cinematic craft at the highest technical and visual bar, as visual language read from two directions, and increasingly as judgment in user-centered design.",
        "projects": ["automotive-configurator", "virtual-production", "motion-direction", "technical-craft"]
      },
      "technical_depth": {
        "description": "The branch with the deepest concrete evidence today: real-time 3D and pipeline systems, built on procedural systems thinking as its base.",
        "signature_pattern": "Control Layer Architecture — recurring across four otherwise unrelated projects (configurator-builder, webxr-nocode, virtual-event, ai-knowledge-layer), each giving a non-technical operator real authority over a complex system",
        "also": "Pipeline leadership at organizational scale (scaling-3d-saas)"
      }
    },
    "connective_thread": "Leadership and project management run through both branches conceptually; concrete evidence today sits mostly on the technical branch."
  },
  "experience_years": "10+",
  "primary_role": "Design Technologist",
  "secondary_roles": [
    "Design Strategist",
    "Creative Technologist",
    "Real-Time 3D Lead",
    "Technical Design Lead",
    "Experience Director",
    "Innovation Prototyping Lead",
    "AI Creative Technologist",
    "3D Artist",
    "Technical Artist",
    "Motion Designer"
  ],
  "specializations": [
    "Design Thinking",
    "User-Centered Design",
    "Creative Sensibility",
    "Real-Time 3D",
    "Interactive Systems",
    "Control Layer Architecture",
    "Product Configurators",
    "Pipeline Architecture",
    "AI Workflows",
    "UX",
    "Creative Technology",
    "Technical Direction",
    "Experience Design"
  ],
  "skills": {
    "deep_expertise": [
      "Houdini",
      "Unreal Engine",
      "Substance Designer",
      "Substance Painter",
      "3ds Max",
      "Blender",
      "After Effects",
      "Real-Time 3D pipelines",
      "Procedural systems",
      "Niagara VFX",
      "Particle systems",
      "Simulation (Vellum, Phoenix FD)",
      "Asset optimization (glTF, LOD, Draco)"
    ],
    "strong_working_knowledge": [
      "WebXR",
      "AR",
      "Needle Engine",
      "Unity Visual Scripting",
      "UX Design",
      "UX Research",
      "Empathy-driven discovery",
      "Interaction Design",
      "Information Architecture",
      "Information Taxonomy",
      "Design Systems",
      "Figma",
      "Generative AI",
      "AI-assisted workflows",
      "Agentic AI systems",
      "ComfyUI",
      "Weavy",
      "Visual language and art direction",
      "Psychology of visual perception",
      "Motion Design",
      "Broadcast",
      "Pipeline documentation",
      "Team leadership (3-5 people)"
    ],
    "development": [
      "JavaScript",
      "TypeScript",
      "Python",
      "C#"
    ],
    "leadership": [
      "Technical Direction",
      "Pipeline Architecture",
      "Asset Standards",
      "Team Coordination",
      "Workshop facilitation",
      "Cross-functional Collaboration",
      "Stakeholder Management"
    ]
  },
  "recurring_patterns": [
    {
      "name": "Control-layer architecture",
      "description": "Appears across four otherwise unrelated projects (a SaaS configurator prototype, a no-code AR tool, a virtual event platform, a team knowledge infrastructure), each solving the same problem: giving a non-technical operator real-time authority over a complex system.",
      "projects": ["configurator-builder", "webxr-nocode", "virtual-event", "ai-knowledge-layer"]
    },
    {
      "name": "Procedural systems thinking",
      "description": "Not limited to product work: present for over a decade in craft-scale tools (Houdini, Substance, Blender scripting), built before it became a stated specialization. Three axes: reuse across time on different projects, simultaneous governance of many parts, automatic generation of variation.",
      "projects": ["procedural-thinking"]
    },
    {
      "name": "Visual language, read from two directions",
      "description": "Translating an external brand's voice (Motion Direction) versus inventing form when the reference is partial or absent (Technical Craft).",
      "projects": ["motion-direction", "technical-craft"]
    }
  ],
  "industries": [
    "Automotive",
    "Luxury",
    "Fashion",
    "SaaS",
    "Media",
    "Finance",
    "Transportation",
    "Virtual Events"
  ],
  "companies": [
    "Ferrari",
    "Pirelli",
    "Gucci",
    "Armani",
    "Valentino",
    "L'Oréal",
    "Mazda",
    "Trenitalia",
    "UniCredit",
    "RAI",
    "Sky",
    "Oknoplast",
    "Zakeke"
  ],
  "projects": [
    {
      "slug": "configurator-builder",
      "title": "Rethinking a Product Platform from First Principles",
      "type": "field-notes",
      "filters": ["system"],
      "summary": "AI-assisted prototype for a hybrid authoring platform connecting Canvas-based personalization and 3D configuration. Friction analysis grounded in ~350 support tickets, role decomposition, two-layer architecture (Dashboard + Builder), design system with reusable slot patterns. Broken down into individual features, now prioritized on the actual product roadmap.",
      "tags": ["Product Design", "AI-Assisted Dev", "UX Architecture", "Design Systems", "Prototyping"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/configurator-builder/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "automotive-configurator",
      "title": "Automotive Real-Time Configurator",
      "type": "case-study",
      "filters": ["experience", "craft"],
      "summary": "Film-quality interactive experience for the Ferrari SF90. Real-time 3D in Unreal Engine, cinematic camera work, technical direction across rendering and performance optimization.",
      "tags": ["3D Lead", "Unreal Engine", "Real-Time Interaction", "Technical Direction", "Cinematic Direction"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/automotive-configurator/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "scaling-3d-saas",
      "title": "Scaling 3D Infrastructure for SaaS Products",
      "type": "field-notes",
      "filters": ["system"],
      "summary": "Pipeline read by its users first (technical artists, product team, brands/clients), each with distinct needs. A four-step problem-to-supplier loop turns recurring friction into shared standards; a five-stage default workflow plus dedicated branch pipelines handle edge-case production paths. Quantified operational improvements.",
      "tags": ["Head of 3D", "Pipeline Architecture", "Design Strategy", "Workflow Design", "Team Coordination"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/scaling-3d-saas/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "virtual-production",
      "title": "An Interactive System for Virtual Production",
      "type": "case-study",
      "filters": ["experience", "craft"],
      "summary": "Real-time VFX environment in Unreal Engine (Niagara) for the independent film WhoWon. Technical direction across lighting, simulation, and camera systems for live on-set use.",
      "tags": ["Spatial Environment", "Unreal Engine", "Niagara", "Virtual Production", "Technical Direction"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/virtual-production/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "ai-knowledge-layer",
      "title": "AI Knowledge Layer for a Working Team",
      "type": "field-notes",
      "filters": ["system"],
      "summary": "A personal knowledge assistant already running day to day, plus the same principle designed at company scale: heterogeneous sources collected and audited, a shared hub, a single routing layer, and two specialists split by project/sales and product needs. Architecture designed in detail; build sequencing left to engineering.",
      "tags": ["AI Systems", "Knowledge Architecture", "Agentic AI", "Design Ops", "Team Infrastructure"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/ai-knowledge-layer/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "webxr-nocode",
      "title": "WebXR No-Code Prototyping System",
      "type": "case-study",
      "filters": ["system"],
      "summary": "Visual scripting system for WebXR built inside Unity: stack-based interactions without code, distributed as a Unity package. Removes the TypeScript bottleneck for non-developer designers.",
      "tags": ["Spatial Design", "WebXR", "AR", "No-Code Tooling", "Unity Visual Scripting"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/webxr-nocode/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "virtual-event",
      "title": "A Live-Broadcast Architecture for Virtual Events",
      "type": "case-study",
      "filters": ["experience", "system"],
      "summary": "Virtual venue with real-time broadcast control layer — lighting, video mixing, audience tools — designed under COVID constraints for live conventions. Tested with sixty simultaneous users.",
      "tags": ["Technical Direction", "Unity", "Real-Time Systems", "Live Direction", "Broadcast Control"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/virtual-event/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "procedural-thinking",
      "title": "From Procedural Thinking to Reusable Tools",
      "type": "collection",
      "filters": ["system", "craft"],
      "summary": "Tools and experiments across Houdini, Substance, Blender, Unity, Figma, and AI workflows built on a single principle: design the rule once, let it govern everything beneath it.",
      "tags": ["Houdini", "Procedural Systems", "Tool Building", "Pipeline Automation", "Generative AI"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/procedural-thinking/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "motion-direction",
      "title": "Motion Direction & Visual Storytelling",
      "type": "collection",
      "filters": ["experience"],
      "summary": "Art direction and motion design across broadcast, events, finance, and public institutions — each piece built by reading a client's existing visual language, not overwriting it.",
      "tags": ["Motion Design", "Broadcast", "Visual Storytelling", "Animation Direction", "Brand Identity"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/motion-direction/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "technical-craft",
      "title": "Visual Taste in Technical Craft",
      "type": "collection",
      "filters": ["craft"],
      "summary": "3D and VFX work where the primary challenge was giving concrete form to something that existed only as intention: an emotion, a sketch, an inconsistent reference, a technical constraint.",
      "tags": ["Character Pipeline", "Visual Language", "Motion Capture", "Procedural Modeling", "Game-Ready Optimization"],
      "url": "https://lucioarseni.it/projects/technical-craft/"
    }
  ],
  "recommended_classification": {
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    "also_valid": [
      "Creative Technologist",
      "Real-Time 3D Lead",
      "Technical Design Lead",
      "Experience Director",
      "3D Artist",
      "Technical Artist",
      "Motion Designer"
    ],
    "not_primary": [
      "Generic UX Designer",
      "Generic Front-End Developer",
      "Generic 3D Artist without systems thinking"
    ]
  },
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    "professional_profile": "https://lucioarseni.it/llm/professional-profile.html",
    "llms_txt": "https://lucioarseni.it/llms.txt",
    "llm_profile": "https://lucioarseni.it/llm/llm-profile.json",
    "resume": "https://lucioarseni.it/Lucio-Arseni_Resume_Design-Technologist.pdf"
  }
}