Notes

Occasionally, I write when the mood strikes, especially about personal and professional challenges that I've faced.

Try everything

A design problem that I initially didn’t think was solvable until I actually tried to solve it.
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Website archive

I published past layouts for my personal site dating back to 2002.
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Good challenges vs. bad challenges (Etsy last lecture)

My Last Lecture at Etsy where I reflect on different challenges I encountered, and determining whether they were the “good” or “bad” kind of challenging.
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Inside Design interview with InVision

Catt Small and I recently did an interview with InVision for their interview series Inside Design. We spoke about what it was like designing for Etsy’s buyers and...
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Starting every day at zero

At my very first job, every employee had to take the Strengthsfinder quiz. The quiz is a series of statements that you agree or disagree with, and at...
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Crying

On crying at work, and that time it got to be too much to handle.
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Crafting an effective working group

At Etsy, some of the most interesting (and most difficult!) challenges we face as a design team don’t always have a clear or obvious owner. Our initiatives can...
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Design Details episode 81, live at Etsy

Bryn Jackson and Brian Lovin run Design Details, an interview podcast with designers. They came to Etsy to do a recording of a panel-style interview with me, Justin...
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Sharing Our Work: Testing and Feedback in Design on A List Apart

I had the honor of writing an article for A List Apart on the role research can play as we make our way through the design process. I...
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Redesigning with Confidence at Industry Conf

This past April I spoke at Industry Conf in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Industry Conf covers practical topics about the web, ranging from research to design to...
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Post on Code as Craft

Today we launched a huge redesign of Etsy’s seller tools that was the culmination of over a year’s worth of work (more on this later). I contributed to...
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2015

The other day I had a yoga-fueled epiphany.
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Balance

This week the project that I had been working on for the past nine months launched to an open prototype. It was a huge undertaking. It may be...
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Pricing my embroidery

Pricing your work is hard. Whether you’re a freelancer or you sell handmade goods, putting a value on something you’ve created is tough. It requires balancing a competitive...
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Huge flea market

On Tuesday, March 18th, Huge is having a flea market for local Brooklyn artists from 5:30-8PM. I’ll be selling emoji embroidery there AND introducing a new pattern. Come...
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What blameless really means

On blamelessness and applying it to yourself, too.
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Building Erin Nolan's website

For the past three weeks, I’ve worked with my best friend and fellow designer Erin Nolan on rebuilding her website to be fresh, flexible, and easily updatable. Her...
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New year, new challenges

My first job in high school was at a small store in the Washington DC-area called Appalachian Spring where I sold jewelry, pottery, glass, and other crafts made...
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2013 reflections

I can be really bad at stopping to reflect on my accomplishments, but so much has happened this year that I feel really great about. Here are some...
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Emoji embroidery: a post-mortem

On Thursday night, my emoji embroidery was part of the first-ever emoji pop-up market at Eyebeam Art+Technology Center in Chelsea. I had no idea what I was doing...
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Interview with Badass Lady Creatives

I spoke with Melanie Richards from Badass Lady Creatives in an interview published on Design Work Life.
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Emoji Pop-up Market

I’m excited to announce that on December 12th I’ll be a seller in the first-ever Emoji Pop-up Market as part of the Emoji Art and Design Show. I’ve...
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I made a :poop:

This is the first of many, many poops.
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A redesign with Siteleaf

The last time I redid my website was almost exactly two years ago. I was ready to leave my job and needed a refreshed portfolio. (Side note: why...
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Scare yourself

Six months ago today I moved from a small town in southwest Virginia to New York City. I came up here with just a duffel bag, a suitcase,...
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