Designed by George Nelson & Associates in 1960, this art was used on the cover of a brochure introducing customers to “Eames chairs for the office”. Herman Miller is selling the poster, and I thought it would be fun to try and recreate it within WordPress using blocks. Not bad if you view it full size.
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Blue Dot block art
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Designing with WordPress
Proud of the team for designing tons of amazing themes & countless improvements to WordPress. Love how it all comes together to make the web a more beautiful place. Wild how far we’ve come.
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Chesky at Config
Didn’t get a chance to attend Figma’s design conference, but caught a recording of the founder of Airbnb after a few of us were discussing it at work.
Wrote up some notes that I found particularly relatable and inspiring.
Brian Chesky talk –
He felt like Airbnb as a product was losing its magic. Looked around and realized a couple things: The company was run by PMs and over time, the more people that he added, the less the product changed.Decided to make drastic changes and be more design lead. Design meaning less of a department and more of how to think about the world/product.
- No a/b tests
- One single roadmap for whole company. If its not on there, its not getting done. All approved by him.
- Elevated design to same level as PM.
- Combined PM role with product marketers – you can’t build a product if you don’t know how to talk about it.
- Created a tiny design team that looks across the entire product.
Principals:
- Obsess over every detail.
- Don’t ship anything you aren’t proud of.
- “Growth” is not a goal.
- Present all work in its most native form.
Love this line:
“We can’t do new things without permission. And we don’t have permission until people love our core service. We have to get our house in order first.”
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Design in Vienna
This past February, all the designers who work at Automattic were invited to meet up in Vienna, Austria. We hadn’t gotten together as a group since 2019 and there was a bunch of people I hadn’t physically met yet. Was so good to get out of our Zoom squares and Figma chats and into the same room!
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Landing.love
Animation and site design inspiration.
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WordPress is 20
Feeling especially grateful today to be working on a product that is in it for the long haul. Looking forward to the next 20+ years of making the web a better place. Celebrating 20 Years of WordPress.
🥂
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Love this by my co-worker, Shaun. It paints a great picture of what its like to be a designer at Automattic. If this was a page in a book, I’d highlight the entire thing. I strongly relate to this line today:
Communication is oxygen, but too much can kill you. Don’t ever feel guilty about missing a meeting, having unread emails, or turning off Slack. Find time to turn everything off and focus on the work.
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Stripe Press
Book and theme design inspiration.
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The End of the English Major
“When I first joined the English department, I felt seen, but I also felt, Maybe I don’t belong,” she said. She’d gone to a magnet public school in New Jersey and felt a step behind the sanguine private-school kids in knowing how to perform her interest in the classroom.
The End of the English MajorA really good article I’ll be thinking about for a while. Its about so many things, but this particular line stuck with me. On being performative about a topic or issue and how it relates to gaining a deep understanding, seeing multiple sides, acknowledging the gray areas, taking meaningful action.
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Reply with a design
Getting feedback on a design iteration is an important part of the job. Sometimes it can result in a spiraling, often unproductive discussion. Over time, this leads to more time talking and less time doing. The user will not benefit from these discussions – they will only see and interact with your design. Focus on the design. Next time, instead of replying to feedback with an explanation: take it in, thank the person, and then reply with a design.
