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I recently sat down with Chelsea Van Beurden, a product designer here at Snapdocs. We talked about banner ads, becoming a rockstar, and wearing many hats at a startup.

Interviewing for a new job can be really rough.

Often times the process is completely opaque. There are portfolio presentations, sample projects, hours-long on-site interviews, and questions designed to trip up candidates or find the fraudsters. That is, if you even hear back from your application in the first place.

Even though companies aren’t often asking about ping-pong balls in school busses anymore, the process can still come from a defensive, suspicious place. It’s less about attracting and energizing amazing candidates than it is about filtering out the bad ones. …

The best designers I know don’t write often. They want to (or, rather, think they should) but can never seem to find the time or a topic ‘worth’ writing or giving a talk about. These designers are humbly focused on doing good work… and they do good work.

There are numerous designers out there who write prolifically. Designers like Jake Knapp and Julie Zhou are huge role models, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot from them. I’m sure many of you would say the same! …

This post has moved: https://wells.ee/journal/2019-05-11-usb-c-sonos-hack/

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I recently sat down with Jen Szeto and Colin Trenter of the animation studio Oddfellows to talk about the production of “The Smarter Workplace” — an animated short we produced together for Envoy.

W: Hi Jen and Colin! Tell us a little about yourselves. Why did you start Oddfellows?

C+J: Hi Wells! We created Oddfellows out of a desire to deliver smart, creative solutions to companies that we respect and admire. We’re focused on creating content that combines unique visuals and emotional storytelling to drive an impact for brands. …

As I was transitioning to management at Envoy, I would say “Those who can’t do, teach” as a self-deprecating joke when among my former peers. Stepping up from a four-person design team at a 30-person company to become the first design manager was awkward, at the very least, so joking about it made it easier for me. It made it seem more like something that was happening to me than something I was choosing. I had never been a manager before, nor had I ever worked at a company that had “design managers” — this was completely new territory.

“Those…

At Envoy, we’re challenging the status quo of workplace technology. We believe that great design and cutting-edge technology can solve age-old problems at work, and we challenged you to share your vision of an office of the future.

Our design team reviewed all of the wonderful submissions, and we chose a winner plus three runners-up based on number of ❤️’s on Dribbble. All of the winners will receive an Envoy merch pack curated by our team, and the grand prize winner will also receive an iPad and Apple Pencil!

Without further ado — our grand prize winner is…

I learned to code midway through my design career, and it’s helped me in ways I never anticipated… especially with working at a startup. It’s made me more scrappy, more consistent, and it’s given me perspective to set my design team up for the future.

I was fortunate to start my design career right as Web 2.0 exploded. Glossy buttons, AJAX, and animation everywhere. As a design freelancer I worked with developers to bring my designs to life in code. …