My blog is a collection of insights and musings from my experience as a product designer and builder in early-stage tech companies. Join me on my journey through the world of startups, and follow along as I explore new ideas and techniques across design and code.
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Startups move fast. Ideas go from whiteboard to launch in weeks, not months. Yet, in my years working with early-stage companies, I kept running into the same problem: design and development just didn’t move at startup speed. You’d get a beautiful Figma file, only to hit a wall trying to implement it in code. Deadlines would slip. Costs would balloon. And worse, the end product often didn’t feel as seamless as the mockups promised.
In the midst of uncertainty about the future of many of our favorite social platforms, running a personal website where you control the code and content is more important than ever. It can be the foundational layer of a personal brand, and it's a great place to experiment with new tools and technologies in a space that's all your own.
If there is any common thread among my last few posts, it is this: optimize, systemize, and automate as much as you possibly can and your job will be easier, you'll have more room for creative thinking, and you can reinvest that extra creativity to grow more effectively.
I recently had the pleasure of reading Brad Frost's post on the role of the emerging frontend designer. It's a bridge between two traditionally separate roles: designer and developer. While a designer would create static mockups for the developer to build with real code, the frontend designer designs in code and builds the frontend UI in digestible components for the developer to bring to life.
We recently launched the 2019 Audio Logo Index - an analysis of the top audio logos in the United States and United Kingdom - to help brands understand how their audio logos stack up against the broader industry, and gauge emotional resonance and memorability in a general population audience.
Web technologies are constantly evolving, day in and day out. Much of our responsibility as web and product designers is to continue learning and keep up with the pace of innovation in order to deliver the best possible experiences for our users. The learning never stops, and that's what makes our work so awesome and exciting.
By now, I'm sure you've heard the story: if you had invested just $100 in Bitcoin on January 1st, 2011, it would be worth over $1 million today. By now, you've also seen the news articles of people striking it rich seemingly overnight, of 1000%+ ROIs, and of governments, business leaders, and celebrities diversifying their investments with cryptocurrency. And then, it hits you: FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out.
While this may be an old and belabored topic, I still think it warrants a conversation at the very least, especially for startups and other fast-growing companies. The discussion over office space versus remote work has been on my mind a great deal lately as Veritonic continues to grow.
I've never really enjoyed writing. It has always felt more like a chore than a hobby. For this reason, the concept of blogging never really captured my interest. I've been designing and building websites for as long as I can remember, but in that time I had never found the reason or motivation to start a blog.
Last week we launched the latest iteration of our Veritonic homepage and marketing site. The new design is intended to reflect the evolution of our brand and product over the past two years.
Back in November and December of last year, I had an awesome opportunity to host a two-part Web Development workshop with Emily Serven, sponsored by the UConn Stamford Digital Media & Design Club. The workshop was designed to be an intro to the fundamentals of website design and development for relative novices (with a basic understanding of web and design but no coding background or applied work).
In my last post, I promised to cover a few of the cool things I've been working on over the past few months. Back in late summer/early fall 2017, as the cryptocurrency market was steadily growing, @falicon and I were looking for a way to automatically notify ourselves if (or really, when) Ethereum's price hit certain targets.
Much has happened since my last blog post. Back in September, I discussed my strategy on investing in bitcoin. And since then, we've seen everything from unbelievable all-time-highs to panic-inducing corrections. In that roller-coaster of a ride, I've grown to have a certain respect for and confidence in Bitcoin. Not in its price or valuation per se, but in its fundamental power — in both the blockchain technology that underlies it and its future as a store of value. And my strategy from September holds strong.
By now, I'm sure you've heard the story: if you had invested just $100 in Bitcoin on January 1st, 2011, it would be worth over $1 million today. By now, you've also seen the news articles of people striking it rich seemingly overnight, of 1000%+ ROIs, and of governments, business leaders, and celebrities diversifying their investments with cryptocurrency. And then, it hits you: FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out.
In a recent meeting with a company that offers a cross-platform e-commerce subscription application, I observed a presentation regarding brand identity and customer retention and engagement efforts. One slide in particular touched on their iterative process as it pertains to branding and design. They explained that over the past 10 to 15 years, they have made significant design changes approximately every 3 years. On the next slide, a graphic displayed the progression of these branding and design changes.
Plugin updates, paid hosting, MySQL databases, hacking PHP, and settings buried deep in the admin panel. These are just a few of the common pain points many users experience with Wordpress. For anyone maintaining a small, personal website or blog, Wordpress is overkill. And while it's extremely versatile in many respects, it's not simple.