The case for Laying the Foundations, a new book about design systems (and more) by Andrew Couldwell — Design systems are something I largely avoided writing, reading, or talking about for an embarrassingly long time. They overwhelmed and upset my brain, which leans towards the imaginative and away from the orderly. …

The stages I went through on my path to learning front-end development — Quick note: “coding” in this article is my shorthand phrase for “learning enough HTML and CSS to be able to create the basic front-end for the websites you design.” Many developers will probably see this as dipping the smallest of pinky toes into “coding,” and that’s fine with me. 💁‍♀️ …

The motivations and struggles behind redesigning my own website — Every web designer knows how challenging it is to redesign and maintain your own website. The shoemaker’s children often go barefoot, as the cliché goes. My professional website, Owltastic, has gone through many redesigns since its birth in 2008 (hard to believe it just passed the 10 year mark!). Before…

Hello! Today I’m going to show you how to use one my favorite features in Adobe XD — Auto-Animate within prototypes. To watch the whole tutorial as a video, view the video file below. Or, you can keep reading! The basis for this tutorial is a project I worked…

A case study detailing the design of two digital research platforms — When Behavior Change for Good, a program born out of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, reached out to see if I’d design their two debut platforms, I was ecstatic. You may have heard about Behavior Change for Good (or BCFG, as we called it) on Freakanomics Radio…

A case study of creating a responsive home page — Note: this case study gives a detailed account of my process on a project I contributed to as a freelancer for an agency. As this project is still in progress and has yet to go live, for now I’ve left out details about the client and specifics about the project. …

The creation of Pawtastic, an e-commerce UI kit — When the team at Adobe XD reached out to see if I’d be interested in creating a free UI kit using their platform, I was beyond excited for several reasons. For one, I’ve used Adobe software in some capacity for all of my 10+ years as a designer, so having…

The role faces play in creating a personality for digital businesses — This article is part of a series based on a talk I gave at Adobe Max and WebVisions last year. To read the other articles in the series, check out Bringing the Humanity Back to Digital. In my last article in this series, “Everything Has a Personality,” I discussed how…

How to ensure your digital experiences convey the right personality — This article is part of a series based on a talk I gave at Adobe Max and WebVisions last year. To read the other articles in the series, check out Bringing the Humanity Back to Digital. In my previous article in this series, “What working in the service industry taught…