This day is Friday, December 22nd, and it’s our last office day this years and I’m working on my last task, it was fun waiting for the end of office hours, says “happy holiday” to our colleagues, and I thoughts why don't I just write my retrospective post today. The “Retrospective” I ideally write this in Bahasa, but for the first time I wanna write this in english, I’m sorry for my bad grammar or do wrong spelling.
Studies retrospective
Professional career wise
It's been more than a year since I was promoted to mid-level designer. I faced and learned many things, and also experienced a lot of improvement in myself. I started working on projects more independently without assistance from our senior designers, feeling more disciplined, and realizing that I can now unleash some of my potentials that, when I was still a junior I felt hesitant or like I wasn't respecting our senior designers.
Becoming more independent and no longer being micro-managed by senior designers made me feel more free. And, to be honest, it sometimes makes me slack-off on my tasks, like, “Well, my lead doesn't gonna check my task in that much now”. This is not good btw, because it can cause delays in the predefined task timeline, and I am the only one who has to take the responsibility for it.
For the first time I was trusted to be the design PIC, as the person in charge of the design team I was required to start learning to be responsible and make decisions for every design and changes needed in the project, and also tracking and monitoring the works. Additionally, I have been trusted to manage junior designers, there are 3 projects that I managed for the design team this year, and for the first time, I experienced how stressful it is to be a design manager.
Experienced for the first time where your junior was dismissed (his contract was not continued) by the company, I felt a huge responsibility for his performance, as he worked under me on the project for the past four months. It's been stressing me out and disappointing because I couldn't help him to grow both personal and skill-wise.
The experience so far are triggering my imposter syndrome again, I'm starting to feel those little things like, “Are my skills really at this level?” and then, at my age now I have to manage people who are older than me, It always makes me nervous and I still feel like I'm not worthy enough for this position. But so far, I have been able to learn new things, and it's for my own good. I also want myself to continue growing and gain more experience to become a good senior designer.
Hard-skill wise
This year, I didn't learn much to enhance my skills in a visual wise, early in this year, I had plans to start uploading on Dribbble again, but it didn't happen. Throughout the year, I didn't upload any designs there. On the other side, I learned a lot about mastering Figma (our lovely tools). For example, I learn into Figma variables, mastering Figma auto-layout, and, most important thing is, learned how to organize Figma files so that others designer who working with me wouldn't be confused.
For me, this Figma variables are very powerful. This year, I got two design projects that required me to creating designs that could be used for more than one brand. Because of that, I needed more than one brand guideline. This is where Figma variables was very powerful, I can just create one design but it can switch between different brand guidelines easily, it's very efficient. For more detail explanation, I will write about this in a separate article.
In the past few months, I have been learning Framer to create my personal portfolio site. In Framer, all the processes of creating layers and components using a similar system to CSS, where using absolute-sizes is not recommended as it can make your website non-responsive. From there, I began applying that to Figma as well.
I realized something since started learning and mastering this auto-layout. One of them is that I noticed a gap in our output between my work and my friend's work. I began to feel that their output didn't quite meet my standards. This makes a bit challenging for me when I need to edit their work. So friends, if you are reading this, please check the quality of your auto-layout designs.
One thing that frustrates me when working together is the messy Figma workspace. Sometimes, there are lots of unused artboards lying around, which makes me often have to ask "guys, which artboard is this that you don't use anymore?” This makes it difficult for me when I have to check my junior’s work. From there, I became aware and started creating rules and workspace format by creating a draft page for all unused artboards, and so on. Maybe I'll write about this in a separate article.
There are a few things I want to learn from the middle of this year, and maybe I'll make them my goals for next year. Like learning 3D design and improving my skills in terms of visual wise. I might start updating my learning progress here so stay tune.
The personal health
Since I was in elementary school, I had a stomach disease that makes my stomach hurt if I eat late, and this year I feel that my stomach disease is getting worse, I started to feel nauseous and vomit in unexpected situations, I first notice this during the final job interview for a startup. I felt an unusual sense of panic, nerves, and ended up vomiting.
Since that day, every activity that requires me to present or appear in public makes me feel nauseous. This had a negative impact on my mental health. Every time there was an interview, I felt like I wouldn't be able to go through it because I was nauseous. I feel like I can't get a new job, present projects, and this is very uncomfortable.
The doctor said that my stomach condition is at the GERD level, where there's no longer a barrier between my stomach and esophagus. Healing from this will takes quite a while, and I'm required to be careful about my diet and stress levels. So far, the healing process has been quite good, and my stomach feels better and I don't get nauseous easily again.
However, I still can't bring myself to do interviews and presentations. Every time there's an interview scheduled, my body feels cold, and nausea starts to kick in. I have been advised to go for psychological therapy. maybe next year, I'll start focusing on my healing journey. I hope for the best in the coming year.
The new portfolio
Yes, I created my new portfolio site (Again), and hopefully, this is the final one. I explored various platforms for my portfolio site, from building it myself to trying out Framer, Webflow and any others. However, I still feel there is a lack with any of it platforms to meet my needs. In the end, I chose Notion + Super.so as my final choice, but honestly this super.so is very very pricey 🥲.
Next, I will gather all of my work and present it here as best as I can. I will also become more active in sharing my learning progress and work-related thoughts here. I might also write about my process in finding the right platform for my website portfolio needs so stay tune.
What next?
Many things that I actually want to do next year, things that haven't been achieved like being active on Dribbble and learning Japanese, I will try to achieve this years. There are also some new goals I want to pursue.
Trying to be a good design PIC, increase my level of patience to be able to think well in any case.
Trying to move up from mid-level designer to senior-level, this is my biggest goal for this new year, with my current level I will push again to be able to rise to an even higher level.
Recovered from all the nausea that caused me to be unable to give presentations and interviews, I will start to go for psychological therapy next year, I hope for the best with my mental health.
learned a lot of new skills starting from 3D design, and also I hope to be able to consistently update on this site, hopefully I can share a lot on this website in the future.
And I also have goals for my freelance career. I want to try several new freelance platforms, hoping to acquire many new clients and diverse projects with various cases.
Let's hope 2024 will be better for all of us! End of the thread, thank you for reading. Happy new year! 🎉
