Delightful Reveal #20

“Cult of personality iguanas.”

What we did:

• Returned from Japan, posted lots of pictures in Slack, made tea.
• Caught up on design research + project documentation from my absence.
• Got word from a client that they want our help changing typography and color palettes across all their brands.
• Created an Excel spreadsheet for double-checking our application’s math and more easily populating designs in Figma.
• Sent out a Branding proposal to help refine an existing brand and make it a more approachable and stand-out from the competition.
• Prepared a proposal for a company who assembled a ragtag group of tools to address their customers during the pandemic. That approach saved their business, but now they’re ready to refine it to make a seamless experience for their new online customers.
• Demoed wireframes to our client and dug deep into the design process.
• Presented and agreed on a research + usability testing plan. Excited for our alignment workshop this week!
• Met with Josh Maurer to provide feedback on a tech talk he gave at our bi-weekly Developer Roundtable on Hotwire. Even as a recent bootcamp graduate he was able to facilitate a conversation that taught some old dogs new tricks.
• Bought tickets to 2.
• Was recruited into going to Blue Ridge Ruby.
• Traveled from Washington DC to be a part of a presentation to get feedback for the email builder that we have been working on. Then proceeded to run around like an awkward tourist.
• Met with JP Balarini of EagerWorks to discuss opportunities to team up.
• Began a new client project that helps organize information in a hierarchy.
• Green lit the Developer Roundtable Broadcast experiment.
• Began exploring some self-hosted service options.

What we’re reading:

• “Follow the Golden Ratio from Africa to the Bauhaus for a Cross-Cultural Aesthetic for Images” by Audrey Bennett (from The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection)
• “The only three types of meetings you ever need to run” by Austin Govella
• Design Patterns in Ruby by Russ Olsen
• Dessert Person: Recipes and Guidance for Baking with Confidence: A Baking Book by Claire Saffitz

What we’re watching:

• The Boxer (1997)
•  The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey (Netflix)
• The Great (Season 3)
• Jewish Matchmaking (Netflix, trailer)
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: The Final Season
• Barry

What we’re listening to:

• Hotline Bling Billie Speed
• M. Ward - “supernatural thing”
• I’m The President - KNOWER 
• Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
• Sleep Soul: Relaxing R&B Baby Sleep Music - not just for babies 😴
• Inventor, Photographer …Murderer, an episode of Sidedoor about Eadweard Muybridge—the character, the artist, the murderer (🥴) who famously photographed a horse’s gait
• Dodie

What we’re interested in:

• The debt ceiling
• Oddities and Curiosities Expo
• Taxidermy
• What’s between Madison, WI and Asheville, NC to see on our road trip.
• This sweet, sweet potato vending machine in Japan

What we’re struggling with:

• Jetlag
• Battle bot spoilers
• A splinter in my thumb
• The difference between starting a timer and just adding a time entry

What we’re buying:

• Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street by Victor Luckerson, a friend
• Custom mixed Louisiana Hot & Spicy Chicken Nail Polish from Orly
• RYOBI ONE+ HP 18V Brushless 6 in. Battery Compact Pruning Mini Chainsaw
• Tea cups from Japan; green tea; a teapot, which I forgot to buy in Japan
• Magic Trackpad
• Scouring pads
• Dish gloves to protect cracked eczema fingers
• Well, we’re not buying a house

What we’re celebrating:

• Building an outdoor enclosure for a wood turtle
• The first female-led team winning the BattleBots championship (overdue, because this happened in 2021, and also it should’ve happened so much earlier)
• Bought Firmament (finally released!) and started playing with 18 year old son before he goes off to college.
• It’s Greek Food Festival weekend in New Orleans
• A visit from Family.
• Seeing everyone’s faces again each morning
• Played another round of Zoom Self-care Trivia with questions and answers provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine

If you’re looking for a team to help you discover the right thing to build and help you build it, get in touch.