2018, A Year in Review

It’s been a crazy 2.5 years since I quit my full-time job and started freelancing. The last two Decembers were so crazy (mostly because I had just finished projects I’m immensely proud of but were also very exhausting) that I didn’t have the time to really reflect before the new year started going.

I’m slowly writing a post about everything I’ve learned so far about freelancing, and the way that it’s changed the way I think about my career and future.

For now though, I just want to reflect on 2018 so that I can go forward with 2019.

The big things ✨

In late February, I set off to Tokyo for three months. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from the trip other then I just knew I needed to get away from all the tech-tech-tech in San Francisco for a bit.

I also wanted to learn more about art and technology in Japan — and in particular, how they used technology as a medium for their art. I went to as many art exhibits as I could. I made friends with Misaki (whose work I deeply admire) and we went to media art exhibits and explored Tokyo. I got to meet Eiji through the Google Developer Experts program and attend their monthly Tokyo meetups. I was referred to HOLSTER, a co-working space with many creatives, and I loved being surrounded by all their energy and talent.

I spent six of my most formative years in Japan, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.

I’m not sure if I got anything concrete out of the trip in terms of art+tech, but I loved being there. It gave me a deep appreciation of nature, and the confidence to pursue more art in my work.

Then in May, my boyfriend visited me for three weeks. We went on a week-long road-trip through Hokkaido, and he proposed.

I said yes.

(It still feels so surreal.)

(We don’t know when our wedding will be, because) we went all in and bought a tiny, ugly condo right outside of San Francisco. We’ll be remodeling the place for the foreseeable future, and we’ll think about our wedding once we have the time, energy, and money to think about it again.

(It’s ugly, but it’s ours, and that feels great).

I also joined an adorable office studio in SF with Amy, Alice, and topher, and they keep me sane and make my day to day work much more enjoyable.

I like San Francisco much more now.

The projects I worked on ✨

In my day to day, I feel quite unproductive, most likely because I set myself daily goals that I don’t usually hit. I wanted to compile a list of projects — finished and attempted — that I worked on this year and hopefully be proud that overall, I do produce.

Projects from top left to bottom right: Colors of Taylor Swift, Send Me Love, filmflowers washi tape, legends.

• Colors of Taylor Swift, abandoned side project (Aug 2017 — Mar 2018).
• Planet, in-progress client project (Feb — May 2018).
• “Big Board” architecture for MSNBC, finished client project (Mar 2018).
• Kimi no Na Wa, unfinished side project (Mar 2018).
• filmflowers washi tape, finished product (Apr 2018).
• Send Me Love for SFMOMA, finished client project (Mar — Jul 2018).
• Data visualization for developers, finished talk (Jun 2018).
• Interactive crossfilter for MSNBC, finished client project (Jul — Aug 2018).
• Data visualization for React developers, finished workshop (Jul 2018).
• Building custom data visualizations, finished workshop (Jul 2018).
• The Seasonality of Box Office Hits, demo for workshop (Jul 2018).
• D3, React & Dataviz, finished talk (Aug 2018).
• Homelessness interactive for the Guardian, in-progress client project (Sep — Oct 2018).
• Internal interactive for NBC Universal, finished client project (Sep — Dec 2018).
• Taylor Swift is mostly happy, quite often sad, and occasionally really scared, unfinished side project (Sep — Nov 2018).
• Legends, finished side project (Dec 2018).

Though only two of my client projects and one of my side projects were published this year (probably another reason I felt so unproductive), it’s good to see I’ve finished seven projects in total. More importantly, I’m almost done with datasketch|es, with the Taylor Swift project being the last.

I’m also proud of the two new workshops I created (especially the custom dataviz one, for which I did a lot of research), and the follow-up D3 + React talk I did for React Rally. In total, I spoke at eight conferences and two meetups, and gave five workshops.

The goals I made ✨

In 2017, Sarah told me about a New Year tradition of hers, where she’d sit down with her husband and her best friend and they’d reflect on the past year and write goals for the upcoming year with a bottle of wine.

I loved the idea so much I made my (reluctant) fiancé sit down with me a few days before 2018 to write down our own goals.

(I’ve never seen him chug wine so quickly).

These are the financial goals I made and was able to achieve:

• Make $█k from client projects. I set myself a high goal for this year, and I’m so glad I was able to work hard and come very close to the number; it gives me the confidence to continue freelancing.
• Refill my retirement and savings. In the first six months of my freelancing, I went through a lot of my savings and wasn’t able to contribute anything to my retirement. I’m happy that I’m (relatively) back on track with my finances again.
• Increase passive income. The ultimate goal is to be less reliant on client work, so that I can free up more time for learning and more creative pursuits. I created two new online workshops for Frontend Masters this past year, and I’m hoping to do more next year.

And the learning goals:

• Take a math or design course. Both are very important for building visualizations, so I wanted to get more practice with them. Tony and I went through half a Coursera course on Linear Algebra, and I read and researched a lot into information design in preparation for my Frontend Masters workshop. I’m happy I went through them, but I could definitely practice more still.
• Learn Vue.js and Processing. These are technologies I’ve been wanting to learn and had been putting off. I got the opportunity to learn Vue.js when a client asked for it, and I took Sarah’s intro to Vue.js workshop (which was excellent). I’ve used Vue since for all of my projects, and it really makes sense for interactive visualizations; I’m hoping to write a blog post on it soon. For Processing, It wasn’t as important to me whether I learned that or something else, as long as I expanded creatively. I ended up taking Matt’s creative code workshop to learn three.js and created a whole project with it that I’m really proud of.

I’m happy that I was able to achieve so many of my goals. The ones I wasn’t able to keep were to cook more (lasted about a month), and to exercise regularly (lasted half the year). Those were hard to keep up because of the amount of traveling I did.

There are also two goals that I actively worked on but didn’t finish, and will be carrying into 2019: finishing datasketch|es, and putting together a physical installation.

The biggest goal moving forward ✨

For 2019, I have a lot of goals: finish the condo renovations, make $█k, finish datasketch|es, redesign and refactor my website, call my grandparents more, keep working on meaningful stories. Then I have my biggest goal: do more art.

I drew and painted on the side for 14 years, but quit when I got to university. I no longer have the drawing and painting skills I used to have, but I now have code as a new medium for my art.

I’ve been wanting to create physical things for the last few years, and I finally made it a goal last year to be part of a physical installation. I wasn’t able to achieve that, but I was able to do a lot of introspection on what a physical exhibition means to me.

I realized two important things during that introspection.

First, that because my day to day is in the 2D, I have a lot of trouble thinking in 3D. As soon as I realized that, I made it a goal to learn three.js (instead of Processing that I was originally planning), and I’m glad I did. I created legends, which is a 3D dataviz of female Noble Laureates, and it taught me a lot about space, camera, and lighting. I have a lot of thoughts about how to turn it into a physical installation.

Second, is a thought I had when surrounded by all the media art in Tokyo, and while going through TeamLab’s Borderless: I want to create art that’s immersive and interactive, and that bring people together.

I’m still not sure what that means for myself, but I’m finally ready to take that first step forward. I want to continue teaching myself WebGl, and I’ll start researching gallery spaces and artist residencies this year. I’m excited for what I might create.

When I was five, I declared that I would be an artist when I grew up. I was then told that it’d be hard to make a living as an artist, so I instead pursued art as a hobby and grew up studying practical subjects. But at 29, I’m emotional with the thought that I might be able to do art after all.

I hope it goes well.