From Fledgling to Functional.

While I’ve been a designer for my entire adult life, the vast majority of that has been spent in the print and brand world. Earlier in my career there was Flash and Macromedia Dreamweaver, and I spent a few years in that world as a ‘New Media’ designer at a local hometown agency and then self-employed doing much the same type of work. Then progressed further into brand creative, product content (packaging, photo, copy, etc.) and marketing work. Just under two years ago, with a sudden change in my employment, I was given the opportunity to jump back into the digital world with both feet.

Today, we have a Figma design kit that is robust, generally well documented and flexible enough to adapt with each new application we design. This current kit has about a year under its belt as a point of truth in the design process, yet there’s always some little enhancement or new learning. Throw the MCP into the mix and acceleration is at hand. We  use this kit daily and we’re also in the early stages of its replacement, a true design system. That will be more than just a pretty picture, but code components (if we can agree on what “component” really means…) that the development teams can pick up and use. That’s a longer road and I look forward to sharing more about it in the future. Meanwhile, we’re back to bridging the gap between legacy applications, ongoing development, and special projects with our innovation team.