I have been heads down the past few years working on understanding some of the software that can make my work easier and more consistent. Sketch being one of those tools. I spent a few years building a production tool for Leo Burnett working on Buick and GMC. Grant and I designed a tool that took the work for 8 designers working all hours of the night down to a single designer finishing by lunch time. Giving those designers time to work on new products and allowing our team to be more efficient.

After building in a design system environment I realized that there was so much more that I needed to learn about system design. I looked for more opportunities to expand however the job I took was limiting to the design system space.

So … I moved to a new team later that year at a CX and BX focused company VML. They brought me onboard to help build a system that was part of creating the foundations to system design thinking at Ford Motor Company.

The system was already in the works but I had a few tricks that I learned that helped me develop symbols in a more efficient manner. After breaking into a system that had years of development debt we cracked the code to working with this giant and started to bring in real change to their system. Later that year the work came to a stop allowing them to catch up on the back end.

Today I am part of a team that is rebuilding the way things move through the pipelines. Bringing a more systematic approach to the teams involved in the work while creating a more consistent look and feel to the deliverables.

I never thought my early days of developing websites and learning CSS and HTML would help me understand the importance of a structured approach to design. Now that everything is built and enhanced with tools like Figma and design system thinking I can be a step ahead of the game in understanding this software.

I started with building a basic tool that helped production design efficiency, learned design system thinking, and now I am build tools that help dozens of designers build quickly and efficiently meeting tighter deadlines and delivering solutions for a pretty stellar product.