I'm Fred Loo. First-generation Malaysian-Australian, 26 years a designer: print rooms in Perth, then brand identity, then product and UX in Melbourne. These days I do something stranger. I write taste down so precisely that machines can follow it.
What I do, what I believe and what it is all for are on this page. The story so far, career included, is under About. The work for clients is under Work.
I run Rational Magic, a design practice. The work is brand systems: I take everything a business means when it says "that looks right", turn it into a system that can be followed to the letter, then oversee the output so it stays consistent. I make the taste calls.
Around the practice I build small ventures of my own. Some earn, some rest, all of them teach me something.
I'm available for senior design work, full time or contract, and by the month through Rational Magic. Email me.
“I've had the pleasure of working with Fred for more than ten years. We started at AssetOwl in 2014, when it was just an idea, and were still working together in 2022 when it was a real product business. Lately he built the brand for a capital group I founded, and I couldn't be happier with it. The thing you get with Fred is judgement. He knows what to do without being told how, which questions matter, and where not to waste your time. He's not a yes man, and I'm grateful for that. He'll bring the research and tell you, kindly, when you're heading the wrong way. On anything new, he's my first call.”
Clear expression is a practice. Play with words until they land, welcome the long pause, and treat conversation as a jam session: different instruments finding a rhythm together.
“The value you have inside tends to be invisible unless you can communicate it well.”
Unhinged exploration first, then rational thinking. Ideas get to be unbound before they get to be feasible. It became the name of my practice.
“You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.”
Match the effort to the stakes. Some steps need high fidelity. Some need a rough sketch, or a conversation instead of a deliverable.
“It seems perfection is reached not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be cut away.”
I live with a small, quiet discomfort about almost everything, and wait. The better answer usually arrives in the shower, on a run, or while moving the furniture for the sixth time.
“I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't work.”
Feel it yourself first. If I cannot imagine being inside someone's moment, no amount of craft will make the work land.
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
I live in Melbourne with my partner Sasha and our Border Collie, Florence. When I ranked what actually matters, breakfast with Sasha and my own health came out above all of the work.
That is what all of it is for. It exists to fund slow mornings, good health, and one day a small farm.