My Journey from Graphic Design to Front-end Development
A long time ago, I found joy in the digital world. Newly developed 3D software unleashed the possibility of creating imaginary worlds when I was still studying architecture. And this was just the beginning of more than a decade of working as a 3D artist and graphic designer, but this isn’t the story I want to tell. I’m writing this as a front-end developer, and this journey starts with events that turned our world upside down.
This modern story begins at a time when the world was closing its doors to public displays, when trade shows had gone extinct, when public life was taking place behind a mask. If at all.
It begins with a walk toward the sunset, thinking about what I was doing professionally and how that made me feel. I had been working on interactive interfaces, videos, and photography, but a seed had been planted by a 3D software and the wonderful community surrounding it — Blender¹. One of the first crowd-funded projects when it became open source, it brought together a passionate and helpful community of artists and developers. And the Blender community, which I would interact with more and more during that time, is also the place where I started to respect the developers who built the tools I was using, as well as the power of open-source software, more and more, and. Although it’s not perfect, Blender was and is, now more than ever, a capable and fun-to-use tool that is in the same league as the big names in the 3D industry.
One of these imperfections led me to coding — when I needed to write a plug-in that exported the geometry on the screen as vectors. And that was fun. And between 3D models and photography sessions, I occasionally dabbled in programming, either by expanding Blender with features our projects needed or by diving into software that took a graphical approach to coding, such as Ventuz² for real-time graphics.
This idea followed me during that summer evening walk, and by the end of that walk, I had discovered that I’ve been enjoying coding more and that it’s never too late to follow your dreams. And there is one development path that bridges the gap between the graphical interface and the back-end programming: front-end. I’m also thankful for my wife’s support, a front-end developer herself, as she afforded me the time I needed to dive into the Ironhack³ Web-Development Bootcamp that taught me both web fundamentals and recent technologies. It marked the beginning of a semester of learning, late nights hunting for the weirdest bugs (at that time), and asking for help from more experienced developers along the way.
One of the most unexpected differences is related to this unending horizon of technology, where there’s always something new to learn, but is also quite opinionated, as opposed to a 3D world where everyone could befriend anyone after they had rendered their first cube. Or donut.
After that crash course that gave me my first level up as a full stack developer, which, in the words of Dave Farley⁴, grants me the ability to write back-end in JavaScript, a new world was awaiting me. The world of interviews for a front-end position. And in that world, I was looking for a company that wasn’t falling behind during these everchanging, interesting times we were still living through while also having a strong grasp on the human side of the equation.
The pandemic led some companies to offer support for mental well-being. Some offer support with mobility and develop the possibilities of working from home. Some interview processes had felt very friendly, with a focus on the positives. Some of those were very inclusive, discovering technical knowledge and potential through conversations. And one of those companies is where I landed my first front-end developer job — diconium⁵.
I was impressed by the extensive onboarding process, as it meant getting acquainted with the technologies used throughout client and side projects in a stress-free timeline, while also getting to know the company’s values, on a macro-level, and among my front-end colleagues, on a micro-level. And after having gone through this process, I can now say that this had been prepared thoroughly and that the care and attention that’s granted to new developers are placing everyone on a path to discover their true potential. One of my highlights was seeing accessibility being prioritized along with the up-to-date workshops that dealt with this new field for me. Which made me think quite fondly of the user interfaces that were meant to be interactive in my former career.
This was my transition to front-end development, from a 3D artist who could also code to a developer who can also design. And this is where the next chapter of my career begins.
I’m thankful for the exercise of staying up to date with recent innovations and technologies. It has proven very useful when Blender switched major versions and the interface drastically changed, along with several improvements and features that were pouring in the artists’ direction. However, there is one major difference between the two worlds — front-end and 3D surrounding a specific software: the number of sources that innovation stems from, and that with good reason — the size between the two worlds is significant, even though, on some level, both feel like one not-so-big global village. I’m thankful, as front-end technologies are constantly popping up and are in a state of perpetual development, at least until the next big thing emerges.
And I could live on both sides of the coin: side projects with experimental technologies and client projects with more mature, reliable ones. Speaking about client projects, I’d be lying if I expected the complexity I encountered when I joined one, but thanks to a thoughtful project onboarding session and a helpful team, I’ve been brought up to speed. As envisioned on that meditative walk, I mentioned at the beginning that I do find what I’m doing now more fun and fulfilling. The principles aren’t all that off, but the tools are completely different.
Testing in front-end is one of these tools that I got to learn as part of one of the R&D initiatives from the front-end collective. It has been like discovering a good friend who guides your coding journey through a project. In graphics, there’s less of that. Some rules and guidelines can be activated, and settings are set in place to function as barriers. While somewhat like static testing, it could make do without it as graphics have one great feature: instant feedback on the color-calibrated screen. Fairly different when compared to the testing pyramid, or to the newer idea introduced by Kent C. Dodds of the testing trophy⁶, his own take on Guillermo Rauch’s: “Write tests. Not too many. Mostly integration.” ⁷
So, this is probably going to be one of my new toys: a testing framework and its assertion library. An almost instant feedback mechanism on new code. A way to know the impact of your changes and additions, and starting with test-driven development, also an approach to software development. Where unit testing is about testing, test-driven development is about design, and this starts with planning and formulating the needed features. New toy but well-grounded old principles.
More than two decades ago, I dived into 3D, and it has been mesmerizing. More than two years ago, I dived into front-end, and I’m in a happier place today. As Jeffrey Zeldman⁸ said it:
Let’s make humanism, democracy and inclusion the real web3.0
[1] Blender3D: https://www.blender.org/
[2] Ventuz Realtime Graphics: https://www.ventuz.com/
[3] Ironhack: https://www.ironhack.com/
[4] Dave Farley’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ContinuousDelivery
[5] diconium: https://diconium.com/
[6] Testing Trophy vs Testing Pyramid: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/the-testing-trophy-and-testing-classifications
[7] Guillermo Rauch’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/rauchg
[8] Jeffrey Zeldman on the web: https://www.zeldman.com/
