The Designer Responsible for Foursquare’s Unique Look Is Leaving the Company

Graphic Designer Mari Sheibley, who has been with Foursquare since 2008, has just announced that she’s leaving the company to “tackle new problems and help other entrepreneurs bring their vision to life.”

“In early December, 2008 I got an email from Dennis Crowley asking if I wanted to help him and his buddy Naveen out on a new “project”. I said yes,” she writes in a Tumblr post.

Sheibley became Foursquare’s first designer, and therefore had a huge role in the app you know and love.

Here’s some more from her farewell blog post:

That “project” was called Foursquare. It was about recording where you’ve been, sharing with friends and discovering new places. For someone like me who used to record all the bars I had been to in a word doc, it was perfect. I could tell there was something special about Foursquare from the very beginning. The energy and excitement that Dennis and Naveen exuded was infectious and the product was addictive. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t pay me, I just wanted to be a part of something I believed in.

Almost four years later I’ve watched Foursquare grow from two guys working out of Think Coffee to a company employing over 150 people across three offices on two continents. In that time I’ve drawn hundreds of badges and icons, designed UI for web, Android and, most notably, iOS. I’ve watched the product evolve from a simple check-in service to a robust recommendation engine. I’ve designed t-shirts, hand cut fake tattoos, co-founded Tie Tuesday, and oversaw the design side of a massive company-wide app redesign. It’s been a wild ride, but like all good things, it must come to an end.

Here’s what a current Foursquare designer had to say about Sheibley on Twitter:

Follow @mrdavenport