Rob Kirkpatrick
§ Work · 2018 – 2026
4 case studies · earlier work in the archive

Things
I’ve
made.

Case 01
2025 — Now
Solo · Design + Engineering
⏵ Active

Fieldbook — a notebook for people who plan trips on paper.

An offline-first journaling app for backcountry trips. You write on the trail, the app waits patiently for service, and your laptop catches up when you're home. Built around a CRDT so two devices can disagree without losing anything.

iOSSwiftUICRDTsOffline-firstBrand
screen · fieldbook · 2025
Case 02
2024
Founding designer · Team of 4
⏷ Acquired

Carto Studio — topographic maps without Illustrator.

A browser tool for designing print-quality contour maps. Pulled USGS data, let you re-style every line and label, exported a PDF you could hand to a printer. Used by a few national parks and one very enthusiastic ski patroller.

WebCartographySVGPrintFounding team
screen · carto studio · 2024
Case 03
2023
Co-founder · Team of 3
⏷ Shipped & sunset

Tempo — a pacing coach for trail runners.

A small watch app that reads heart rate, grade, and time on feet — and tells you when to back off before you blow up. Released to ~6,000 weekly users. Quietly retired when the platform changed underneath us.

watchOSHealthRealtimeHardware
screen · tempo · 2023
Case 04
2022
Editor + designer · printed annual
⏷ In print

Index, vol. I — a 96-page printed annual.

An end-of-year book of essays, route notes, and photographs from the year. Set entirely in Helvetica & Times, printed on a Riso, distributed by mail. 250 copies, the last ones still floating around.

PrintEditorialRisoBookmaking
screen · index, vol. i · 2022
§ Archive
Earlier work
Things that no longer need a case study but earned their place on the page.
05
Trailhead
A weekend project that turned into a small SaaS for outdoor clubs.
2021
·
06
Range — a typeface in progress
A geometric grotesque for cartographic labels. Two weights deep, six to go.
2021 →
·
07
Talus
A small CLI for syncing GPX files between watch, phone, and Strava.
2020
·
08
14ers.txt
A plain-text ledger of every fourteener I’ve climbed, with weather notes.
2019 →
·
09
Cairn
An RSS reader I wrote because I didn’t like any of the other ones.
2018
·
§ Available

Selectively taking on new work — small teams, narrow scopes, mountain-adjacent companies preferred.

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