2015 Year in Review

Stats

  • Featured in 4 podcasts
  • Wrote 15 articles/blog posts
  • Gave 16 talks at conferences and meet ups
  • Hosted 8 external meet ups at Salesforce
  • Hosted 3 meet ups for The Mixin

Doing My Best Work

  • We launched my dream project, the Lightning Design System and I am ecstatic at how well it was received.
  • I took lead on our UX Evangelism efforts, including maintaining our blog, Twitter account, Dribbble, event sponsorships, speaking and encouraging others in my organization to speak, among other team brand initiatives.
  • Some teammates and I were filmed in the documentary, Design Disruptors — we weren’t in the trailer, but we should end up in the final cut.

Other Personal Details

  • Sushi & Robots is now an LLC. and I filed a trademark for it. This is the entity I will use to organize meet ups and conferences.
  • I worked on Clarity which will happen in 2016.
  • Moved to Little Hollywood.
  • Dated a nice guy but we broke up.

Following, you can see my year in pictures.

Trips

Seattle with my brother, visiting Natalie & Liz

Dallas/Grapevine, TX with coworkers for Squares

Detroit, Michigan with friends for DEMF

Berlin, Germany and seeing Andy Warhol exhibit

Then to Hamburg, Germany for So Coded

Ace Hotel in Palm Springs with Beth & Stacy

Barcelona for Smashing Conference

Long Beach, California for CSS Dev Conf and staying on the Queen Mary

Austin, Texas with my teammate Brandon for SassConf

Big Canoe, Georgia for Web Whisky Weekend

New York, New York with teammates for UX Awards & Salesforce World Tour NYC, and staying in this gorgeous Airbnb

Atlanta, Georgia for Salesforce World Tour ATL

Shows

New Years Celebration with Beats Antique

The Edwardian Ball

The Book of Mormon

Free Metallica Show for Salesforce Employees

Hall & Oates

Opera Opening Gala with Beth & Stacy

Empire of the Sun

Meeting Garbage in VIP for their 20 Years Queer tour

Seeing Danny Elfman & The SF Symphony play to The Nightmare Before Christmas

Soundbox with Beth

Other Events

Learning to Sear Foie Gras

Sailing with my team

Moving to Little Hollywood

James Bond party at Wingtip with caviar straight from the sturgeon

Anchor Steam’s brewery party

Bastille Day at Wingtip

Skywalker Ranch

Dying my hair blue, green, and purple

Speakeasy charity benefit gala with Beth & Stacy

Speaking at Future of Web Design in my Wednesday Addams Halloween Costume

Buying these awesome headphones

Thanksgiving at Wingtip

Sinatra Holiday Party at Wingtip

2016 Changes

  • I got the news that starting January 1st, I am promoted to Lead Designer, Design Systems.
  • My colleague, Ian, will take lead on the blog so I can focus more on our events and social efforts.
  • Check out my final article at The Pastry Box for other 2016 goals.

Happy New Year!

Card Review: Thick Lines

Thick Lines is the first card deck offered by DeckStarter, designed by Draplin Design Co.

The Box

This deck comes in a pretty cool animating case called MagicPak™. The box is “decked out” (pun totally intended) with thick-lined circles in very vibrant sunny colors. The thick slab type has a retro vibe going.

Card Backs

The backs are attractive with the same mirrored sunny circle designs.

Number Cards

The thick-lined pip shapes match well with the retro slab typeface used for the numbered cards.

The Aces

Instead of just the Aces of Spades, all four Aces get a big, bold pip in the center.

The Face Cards

The face cards use the traditional style of mirrored poses that most decks have, but the thick outlines help set them apart. I love the DDC logos in the center. It almost feels like a big belt buckle.

Jokers & Other Cards

The Jokers are very simple and rely on typography instead of an illustration. I like that the corners of the cards say “HA HA”. Not many Jokers get corner artwork.

Finally, the deck also comes with information cards for both Burgopak (the makers of the MagikPak) and Deckstarter.

Cascade SF: UX Night

In San Francisco, Cascade SF holds a monthly meet up called UX Night, an event in which there are two hours of speed design mentoring and presentations. This week, I had the opportunity to attend and speak. It was a pretty great event!

Speed Design Mentoring

When I walked in, I was very impressed. I saw a huge room full of an energetic crowd. At many tables throughout the space, there were attendees meeting 1-on-1 with design mentors. It was speed mentoring, so everyone had a time slot they signed up for to meet. Everyone seemed very talented and passionate. I saw some people getting feedback on their projects, and some just having a conversation. It looked pretty fun.

The Presentation

After the mentoring sessions were over, it was my turn to present. I spoke about the work my Design Systems team is doing at Salesforce UX. I was excited to have many conversations afterwards about what other people are doing in this space.

My Slides: Living Design Systems

Next Month

I’m very excited about next month’s event. We are hosting it at the Salesforce Rincon Cafe. It looks like it’s going to be another great event. If you’re interested in checking it out, grab tickets here. I look forward to seeing you there!

Card Review: Flesh + Bones

Flesh + Bones is the most recent deck of playing cards I have received for my collection, so I figured I would review this one first. This is a deck hand-illustrated by Dual Originals for DeckStarter, and I was a backer.

Admittedly, I was very frustrated because my order was really late. But after some back-and-forth over support and social media, DeckStarter made it right with me. I can be a little impatient for things I’ve paid for, but once I received the deck I was very happy and it was worth the wait.

The Box

I love the design used for box. It is minimalist– just black and white. It reminds me of the Bristol Board I used to print on a lot in art school.

Card Backs

Most decks I have sport beautiful backs and have boring fronts. While I think the backs of these cards are very nice, they are less interesting than the fronts, which you’ll see soon.

Number Cards

The front of the number cards are smaller numbers and pips, a slight departure from the standard style. I like the simplicity.

The Aces

Usually only the Ace of Spades has a fancy design. I love that all four aces get a nice illustration.

The Face Cards

I love these face cards. Instead of typical royal humans in fancy clothes, we get a range of monsters, including mermaids, dragons, unicorns, etc.

Jokers & Other Cards

The Jokers are stunning. I like the contrast between the two. One card is heavy with a skeleton with long hair filling most of the card. The other joker is stark and clean with the butterfly (or moth?) in the middle.

Finally, the deck also comes with information cards for both Art of Play and Dual Originals.