It’s been a few years since I had a personal website. Shortly after I started freelancing I moved my case studies offline and shared my antics through social media. Having my work publicly visible wasn’t a big deal.
But in 2025 I’m building my website up again. Why? Because I’m having a quarter life crisis.
The inevitable pivot
My career so far has been a lucky one. I chanced my way into a UX internship after the previous candidate dropped out, and from there it’s been relatively smooth sailing into a decade of work. I’ve given talks and mentored juniors. I even switched to freelancing during a global pandemic.
But I feel disconnected from my work in a way that’s no longer tolerable. I miss the feeling of building. There’s magic in taking a design, typing a bunch of words into a text editor, and making the idea into a real functioning thing.
So I want to do more programming. Not as I have been, grasping at every chance to step out of Figma and into VSCode, but making it my actual job.
My goals for the next few months
I recognise that this is going to take some time, to dust off the CS degree and peek into the zeitgeist of front end development. I want to meet new folks and find my fit.
My targets for the first months of 2025 are:
-
Rebuild my website. I’ve chosen Astro to do this. It’s a new framework so I’ll be learning but it’s familiar enough that I can build without getting too stuck.
-
Get some real world experience. I’ll be joining the folks at Vouchsafe as their design lead but also contributing to their front end as an engineer. I feel lucky to have this opportunity to learn and work at the same time.
-
Attend events and meet new people. There’s so much I don’t know about this space. I want to go to conferences and work with different teams, maybe meet more tech folks that I can learn from. Very open to suggestions on this front!
But what about Gubbins?
Since I launched my studio a couple of years ago, it’s been through a few identity changes. My vision is to keep it as a studio for one-off projects and community-focused stuff, somewhere I can funnel my creativity and help people through consultancy work. Whatever that means.
For now though my ambition is to get my career spark back, and that means focusing on the tasks that bring me joy.