Welcome to my page. As I write this it’s a whole lot of nothing, though if you’re reading this it’s likely morphed into something worth visiting by now, in which case it seems like I’ve achieved at least some of my objectives in building it.

So what’s this site all about?

As I mentioned in my inaugural post, I’m hoping to transition from my current role as a product designer to something in the realm of design engineering in the next few years. This site is a place for me to share what I’m learning and eventually to host my projects.

What I want to learn

I’ve already got a decent base in HTML and CSS, and I understand at least the basics of JavaScript. I’m looking to level up my CSS and JavaScript, get a solid understanding of React, and get more comfortable with developer tools and the overall web development process. I’m also hoping to get more comfortable with animations, using both CSS and GSAP.

I’m currently working through both Kevin Powell’s Beyond CSS and Scrimba’s Frontend Developer Path. Once I’m done with those I may dabble with a couple other Scrimba courses, or perhaps I’ll finally break free of tutorial hell and start actually building my own projects. (I’m keenly aware that I should do this sooner rather than later).

Speaking of projects…

The first project I plan to build is this website. Currently I’ve just spun up a very basic instance of Astro with a very basic theme and using markup to write my blog posts. The final module of Beyond CSS goes into creating an Astro site and setting up a CMS.

I’m quite interested in design systems engineering, so my next project will be to build out a basic design system, starting with designing it in Figma, then coding it in React, and them familiarizing myself with tools like Storybook and Figma’s Dev Mode and Code Connect. The fourth module in Beyond CSS walks you through creating a design system using CSS, and the Advanced React course in Scrimba has a project devoted to building a design system in React. I figure I’ll start with those, then build out something on my own.

Once I have a design system, the next logical move is to use it to build a React App. And that is about as far as I’ve gotten in planning that project haha.

I also want to improve my animation skills and play around with scroll animations and some JS libraries, so I want to build some sort of Scrollytelling site.

Beyond that, I’ll probably devote some time to just experimenting with building cool things and finding inspiration from others in the Design Engineering space. There was a great talk by Jhey Thomas at this year’s Config that was particularly inspiring!