August de los Reyes

August de los Reyes was a pioneer of inclusive design whose twenty-five-year career included leading software design for Xbox at Microsoft, heading design at Pinterest, directing user experience at Google, and serving as chief design officer at Varo. He was president of AIGA San Francisco and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

A spinal cord injury in 2013 left him a wheelchair user and reframed his practice around a single idea: that disability is not a property of a person but an outcome of design — a mismatch between someone's abilities and the environment built around them. He argued that designing from that difference produces better outcomes for everyone, the way a curb cut serves far more people than it was drawn for. He died on December 21, 2020, at 50, of complications from Covid-19.