Meet Victor Zaud of Disney+ in Burbank

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victor Zaud.

Victor, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Cupertino, California. What started as a farming town, evolved into the heart of the Silicon Valley as NASA made it’s home in nearby Santa Clara. In Junior High, I became enamored with early personal computers – the Apple II. I started playing early video games and then tried to learn computer languages so I could make my own. I didn’t get very far until Apple introduced the Macintosh. I totally connected with how that computer elevated design and what would become user-interface design.

I poured myself into learning everything I could at age 15 about the Mac. Not able to afford to buy one, I would ride my bicycle after school to a nearby computer store (you used to only be able to see computers in a store) and befriended a manager who let me experiment and ultimately started writing a newsletter about my discoveries about the Mac. I distributed my newsletter all over Cupertino. I eventually sent a copy to Steve Jobs at Apple. He called me one day and told me to come visit Apple.

Designers at Apple weren’t yet using the Mac as much I had learned how to use it to do design work. They invited me to come to Apple (after my school day) and continue to write and design it there. I sat in the offices of Steve Jobs and John Sculley in 1985 continuing to make friends and write my newsletter. In the Summer of 1986, I applied for the first-ever design internship at Apple – and got it. I spent that first Summer of 1986 after graduating from High School, doing design work and being schooled by some of the most notable designers working at Apple at the time.

All those designers at Apple had come from one place – ArtCenter in Pasadena. After two years of trying to get accepted, I finally did – and majored in Graphic Design. I became a computer lab teaching-assistant and helped to create a relationship between ArtCenter and Apple. When I graduated, I went to work for a design firm that had been started by one of the Art Directors I’d worked for at Apple.

That’s how my design career began.

That first job working for the legendary designer, Clement Mok – exposed me to a ton of cutting edge design projects ranging the gamut from events, identities, software and food packaging, and introduced me to the concept of product interface design – before it even had that name.

I took a bit of a “left-turn” when an opportunity came up to get in at the start of a Tea Company that needed design help. The Republic of Tea. I created the first packaging for this company – which started a tea-revolution in the US.

From there, I was introduced back to a design firm/publishing house that was doing revolutionary design in publishing with books – a group that coined the term Information Design – The Understanding Business. I worked on designing very complex publishing projects that included some books, but mostly industry publications like catalogs, telephone directories in Amsterdam and Sweden, and even training materials for Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo. Information Design was something I truly loved. It blended complex information with great design to provide super informative graphics. This blend of graphic design, illustration, writing, and all packaged together into an understandable presentation was something I became quite skilled at.

Then, the Internet happened – and I saw the opportunity to blend my abilities in design and information organization to apply that to better ways to access digital information. I brought several internet-related projects to the Understanding Business and led the business unit into several huge projects with telephone companies as well as early search engine companies like InfoSeek and Yahoo.

I left the Understanding Business when I reunited with my first mentor, Clement Mok – when he explained he was co-founding a software company that would develop software to make building Web sites easier. I joined NetObjects in 1994 as a head of Design and was in charge the brand, marketing, and product interface design. I spent four years building NetObjects Fusion until the company went public and had it’s IPO. Later, IBM bought the majority of the company. Today, Adobe owns NetObjects’ patents – 4 with my name on them.

I went back to my design roots after NetObjects and started my own design firm – to do a blend of software design and brand development. Zaudhaus started in 1998 and continues to date. I play an advisory role.

At Zaudhaus, I grew my company to more than ten employees with an office in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We did work for companies large and small including DELL, Adobe, Microsoft, and a wide range of small startups. We worked in technology industries as well as food and beverage. I took pride in developing close relationships with my clients and selecting projects I felt could be successful.

In 1999, I co-founded JuiceBeauty as I saw the opportunity to create a unique skincare company with a majority of organic ingredients as that wave in skincare was starting. After early success, I sold my interest in the company. I’m proud to say the current design of the packaging still retains my original identity design.

In 2004, I co-founded Glam Media – a blogger-based media company. After two years of working part-time while still running my design firm, I stepped back from being head of design. In 2011, when Glam had reached incredible success and was poised to go public, I rejoined and took over product design for five years and helped develop a completely new line of business in media advertising. The company enjoyed continued success for those five years until sadly, there was disagreements between investors in the company and they ultimately shut the business down.

I joined IMVU, Eric Reis’ Avatar-based social network as the head of Marketing in 2016. I led Marketing for three years and saw the company reach unprecedented revenue heights while I evolved the brand story, and drove several marketing campaigns to grow the Creator Business. I resigned from IMVU in 2019 to go back to the independent consulting work of Zaudhaus.

Friends working at Disney+ had been in touch off & on and as the division began to build awareness of its launch, I took interest in opportunities there. I joined Disney+ in late October 2019 as Senior Director of Product Design.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I’ve had a lot of moments when new opportunities presented themselves and I had to make a hard decision whether or not to “jump” to a new opportunity. Some were good jumps and others weren’t.

I was really lucky with my first job out of college. It was a recession and there were very few design jobs available. I was lucky that a friend I’d worked for at Apple knew me and took a risk in hiring me.

When I left that job and started work at The Republic of Tea – there were only a handful of employees. I eventually lost my job there when the design work was done. It was only a year. Again, I was lucky that the co-founder of the tea company introduced me to the President of a publishing company that needed designers.

When I joined NetObjects – I’d never been at a startup like this before. The company almost went out of business when the Venture Capital company pulled its funding. For 24 hours, I didn’t know if I’d get a paycheck. It survived.

When I co-founded Glam, and left, and then went back – I thought for sure this was going to be a huge success. It was for several years and then suddenly, the company went out of business and I was out of a job.

Somehow, I’ve been lucky enough to get jobs even during my darkest and scariest times.

We’d love to hear more about your work at Disney+ as well as about the service and brand in general– what should we know? 
At Disney, I work on the Disney+ streaming service. This is a very new business for Disney, but it’s also a platform that makes a lot of sense to people inside and outside the company – as a place to showcase all the amazing content that Disney has. It’s exciting to be developing a new technology for a company that is pretty old – and has amazing assets to share with the world.

At Disney+ I work on the product interface, the product marketing, and helping ensure the content users see is the best it can possibly be to represent the movies and series’ on the system. I collaborate with filmmakers, marketers, and product strategists to craft the best experience for our users.

I haven’t worked here very long yet, but I think I’m getting already known for being capable of bringing people together to collaborate. I’m pretty good at helping different groups understand each other and how we can work together to achieve our shared goals. That might not sound like a designer’s role – but once that collaboration can happen, we do create great design results.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
When multiple groups are communicating effectively and processes run smoothly and with great transparency – I think that is essential for success.

Pricing:

• Disney+ costs 6.99 per month

Contact Info:

• Website: Disneyplus.com; Zaudhaus.com
• Email: [email protected]

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