My Life as a Product Designer + General Updateage

I was going to write about how awesome product design is for Valentine’s Day, but I had a lot of work to do and that idea got scrapped fast.

It’s been about a year [of my second term] at NASDAQ, and I’ve learned how much I really enjoy product design. It’s the perfect combination of visual design, UX, and code. I was at first hired as more of a straight-up web designer, but with time I absorbed information about research, user interviews, new frameworks, plugins, and best practices from my coworkers. I grew from a person with the possibility of being something into someone who designs products that are utilized by (hundreds of?) thousands of people in a short 12 months. Dayum.

I can’t delve into too much more at the moment (I’m tired!), but I really want to do a wireframing/sketch dump one of these days! I have a notebook full of sketches and drawings I can’t wait to put on the interwebs.

What am I up to now, thou might ask?

Here’s a list of the stuff I’m working on:

1. My awesome day job at the DAQ!
2. Tech Under Thirty! If this month’s meetup goes well, I’m going to look into getting someone to help me with all this content we’re going to generate. I’m so behind with everything!
3. The occasional small business website design. I have… 3 websites I’m working on for small businesses at the moment. I am fully-booked. Hooray, paying rent and supporting mom & pops!
4. Game art. Because freelance and a meetup wasn’t enough, I’m working on the art for Al the Chemist. This is why I haven’t been working on comics at all.

A few months back, I designed a simple logo for a bitcoin startup that quickly jumped to the top of the ranks. Now that logo is on chips worldwide, woohoo! In addition, I just finished my contribution to the Reinvent NYC Payphones project and a proposal for a talk at UXPA 2013. Unfortunately, because of all this stuff, my drawing time has been sapped. I really want to make stationery again and draw. When there are less things on my plate, I’m getting back on that!

The next few months’ plans

If everything awesome happens, I’ll be helping to launch my second product in April. That goes into development and will get shipped who knows when, but maybe my first one will be finished by then! I’m so excited to share the design & code I spent months working on. In addition, Tech Under Thirty will grow and we’ll consider doing more events per month, both online and in person. I’ll launch the small business sites throughout the next few months and finally have time to clear out my Steam collection.

Jetsetting like a mofo

Not only am I working like cray cray, I’m going to be travelling a lot this year. I already went to DC/Maryland for MAGFest, and the boonies in Massachusetts for work. I’m in Cali for a few days in March, then back in MA for PAX East at the end of the month. Then in April, I’m bouncing to Florida for bdconf. Wow, look who sounds semi-professional now! 1 year ago, I could barely afford to pay for 275 sq feet of living space. Things do change, people! Please believe that good things will come to you if you work hard and don’t give up. As cliched as it sounds, it’s the truth. I’ll try to post up pics when I’m traveling. I’m pretty bad at remembering to photoblog.

I think that’s all I’ve been up to outside of love, friends, family. I’m feeling extra sleepy now, so it’s time to say good night. Follow your dreams and shoot for the stars, kiddies!