2024 Year in Review

I don't know what I wanted out of 2024, and I think that's okay. I started the year focused on trying to figure out the next thing for me career-wise. I did some freelance design work, even designed a whole app for someone, and continued with the interviews but every time a company asked for a presentation and 6 rounds, I bowed out. Hiring in tech needs to be revamped from the ground up in my opinion, but that's a whole other post. Once I started saying no to things, life started to fall into place.

Living in another country that first year is hard. I had moments of joy, severe moments of grief for my life in Seattle, moments of loneliness as I try to find a community. It was a big year and I gave what I was capable of giving.

Highlights #

• January: Family trip to Hawaii, spent two weeks in Phoenix, brought Vogue home to England (via France)
• February: Started the month still unemployed after RapidAPI layoffs in 2023, ended with employment offer
• March: Started at Igalia
• April: Mostly getting used to employed life again, have my first bad experience in 12 years with a hair stylist
• May: New kitchen installation/renovation, Design for Developers published in German
• June: Work offsite in Spain, spoke at Pixel Pioneers, Jhey & I go to San Francisco for Figma Config
• July: Spoke at Web Summer Camp Croatia, explored Bedford and Bedford River Festival
• August: Traveled to Seattle, Whistler and Uniontown (Pennsylvania) for bachelorette party & a baby shower. Became an auntie 7 weeks early so baby shower was more of a welcome shower.
• September: Spoke at State of the Browser, my & Jhey's first anniversary, Seattle visit for friend's wedding
• October: Another Seattle/Bellingham visit for friend wedding #2, Vienna for AWE EU
• November: London offsite for Igalia Web Platform team, Phoenix visit for Thanksgiving
• December: Rest, lest I be consumed by burnout.

2024 By the numbers #

• 4 conferences as a speaker
• 226 Copies of Design for Developers sold
• 128,521 miles traveled
• 37 YouTube Vlogs
• 20 Blog Posts
• 31 Books Read (Read the recap here)

Building Foundations #

2024 was very much a year of re-building for me. Re-building confidence. Re-building a place to call home. I was and still am releasing a lot of pain and anxiety around moving to Berlin in 2023 and what followed (the layoffs & office closure). I swung completely the opposite direction in terms of company choice in my career. From Unicorn Startup to a Co-Op Technology Consultancy. Upon self-reflecting, I find something comforting in this environment. We are not necessarily at the whims of investors and need to 10x their investment, however we have to work harder to market ourselves and find customers.

I enjoy working on the web platform and helping to coordinate projects that get new features shipped. It feels familiar too because I end up encountering so many people I worked with on Microsoft Edge. I've also been getting to use my design & front-end development knowledge recently and I love that.

The burns from 2023 are starting to heal but I am left with some lingering scars that are taking longer to fade. I am acutely aware of these things and am able to connect the dots and ponder things.

Shifting Routine #

I pretty much said goodbye to Twitter (or X whatever the hell it is now) in the autumn. After a year and a half long harassment campaign on the platform, and then Elon Musk taking over, I just couldn't continue. The content being pushed into my timeline drove me away. I started to engage less and less, and I saw less and less of the people I wanted to see in my timeline. It was bringing me anxiety and my mental health was noticeably worse whenever I'd scroll. I'd find myself scrolling without seeing anything that would actually want me to remain on the site. So I downloaded my data and locked down my account.

After doing that I relaunched https://designfordevelopersbook.com with a completely new re-design. Built another site I haven't pushed live yet and read 15 books.

Huh. Strange how that happened.

I seem to have broke the spell that hell site had on me. The site that acted as the connection to landing my job at Microsoft is long gone. I felt like I owed it some sort of allegiance because my life would be very different had I not been discovered on that platform.

My mental health is better for it. It's allowed me time and space to create and work on other things. Even with Bluesky, my time is being spent much more thoughtfully, helping me to carve out time for new routines. I started taking Vogue on morning walks, a shift which has been immense for my mental health during the winter.

2025 Hopes & Dreams #

I haven't drawn up my bingo card yet but the things I'm thinking about this year:

• Exploring more of the UK
• Get my UK license
• Establish a routine of barre & reformer pilates (in progress!)
• More frequent fancy spa days
• Create a community gathering (details coming soon)
• Sell more books
• Build out Design for Developers The Expanded Resource
• Continue to build out my YouTube (I'd love it if you'd subscribe)
• Continue to prioritize reading (I'm reading books 7, 8 and 9 already)
• Speak at a few events (get in touch)
• Redesign my personal site (lol) and this blog
• I am overdue for mountain biking
• Travel
• A never ending house project list
• More design projects

The start to 2025 has been eventful, and I am trying to not get swept up in a chaotic rush. I think I've been succeeding. It's about flowing with the seasons. It's still winter. So I'm in cozy mode making plans, moving slowly. And that's alright with me.