Author: jupago

2017 was a pretty awesome year.

Personally, Betty and I worked on a couple of cool projects; the one below by far our (90% her) finest.

She’s taken our sleep breath away.

Professionally, started speaking, mentoring, teaching, and got to work on a ton of fun projects as a freelancer. Will probably write more about that in another post, but for now I want to focus on the one that I enjoyed the most: CSS Grid.

It all started in 2015 at An Event Apart in SF.

Jen Simmons gave a fascinating talk on layouts that spoke to the designer-forced-to-learn-how-to-code in me, the one that had succumbed to floats and taken a sabbatical when Flash died. The next day at that same conference, Rachel Andrew took that spark to the next level by introducing me to CSS Grid.

I was hooked!!

Two years later, with help from one awesome meetup hosted by Jen and THE course on CSS by Rachel and I’ve become confident enough to speak at a couple of conferences about Grid and share my enthusiasm with others.

One of the things that I’ve been wanting to do is put together all of my demos in one place. Anything from actual sites I’m working on, to book covers, to random snippets. If it sounds similar to what Jen Simmons did with labs.jensimmons.com …it is! Her work is my main inspiration and I can’t credit her enough.

I’ll aim to upload one a week so I can get on a schedule (I know.. I know.. me and schedules).

(Eventually adding the page to the top menu. I’m designing my portfolio on the browser so I have to go back and rethink what I initially *assumed would be a very small menu).

*assumed: last word an UX Mentor should use.

Mom and Dad just had their 40 year anniversary.

Forty…

Forty

Forty!!!

My brother (also known as Ficha Azul) and family flew here from California for a surprise party. Here are a couple of photos of them back-in-the-day that we printed for the event:

It was also my 8-year-old nephew’s trip back to NYC after many years, so decided to make it an adventure.

Designed a few quick badges he had to earn for points, the last one being the coolest badge of all: A sleepover under the big blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History. There are times when you do things you don’t enjoy for others. This was not one of those times. 122 fricken’ feet fricken’ Titanosaur!

Built him a quick website to have as a souvenir, keep track of badges, and perhaps add or redo at a later time!

And last!

Spoke at my first conference in Spanish, in Mexico City.

The title of the talk was “Llegó CSS Grid” (CSS Grid has arrived). I got super inspired by the work of Jen Simmons and Rachel Andrew that I decided to speak about everything I’ve learned,

Will probably do a full post on the whole experience and content, but overall, it was pretty awesome. Got people excited about CSS Grid, and made a lot of new friends.

If you are reading this and design for the web go go go go learn about CSS Grid

*Just Google anything Jen or Rachel above have done and you’re on a good track.

And Bonus!

Started working as a Mentor at Bloc, will probably follow up on another post once I get some more experience. So far it has been pretty cool. The curriculum is great and they have built an awesome community around it.

My June has also being pretty hectic, though it started with me googling:
“Fix flashing question mark folder when I try to start my mac“…

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

I’m back in good shape, so…

┬─┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)

But still, come on Apple, these new MacBook Pros are super buggy…

┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`□´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

But then again, me whining about an expensive laptop is definitely a first world problem.

┬─┬ ︵ /(.□. \）

The following is a conversation between JP and Jupago. It happened on a chilly Spring morning as the snow from the three previous storms was finally starting to melt.

[JP] So..what’s up, It’s been a while. When are you writing your next post.

[Jupago – JPG] Almost, almost, gotta have something awesome.
I’m working on a few things. My Projects page is almost done. I have two case studies I started writing..

[JP] Cool, so.. when?

[JPG] Soon.

[JP] When?

[JPG] Soon.

[JP] When?

[JPG] Soon!!!

[JP] When?

[JPG] Tomorrow.

[JP] Are you sure?

[JPG] I’ll try.

[JP] Not good enough..

[JPG] I’m busy man..

[JP] I’m just going by what you promised, that you’d write more often.

[JPG] I did, but what if I miss a few, it is not like I have a million readers.

[JP] But you said you are doing this for yourself.

[JPG] Fine… So I’ll write something quick tomorrow then try to go back on a schedule. Fair?

[JP] ಠ_ಠ

[JPG] What?

[JP] Can you create a schedule?

[JPG] Like a publishing schedule? I don’t even know what I’m going to write about tomorrow.

[JP] Yeah. But not just for your posts. For the other things; the case studies, the projects page. etc.

[JPG] I could I guess.

[JP] Could? Guess?

[JPG] I suck at estimating. I think It will take me 20 minutes, it takes me three hours. I think it will take me a day and it takes me one hour. What can I do?

[JP] I suck at estimating too. We all do.
A couple of things I can think of:

1. The “set big goals” thing is awesome, you’ve managed to learn a lot in the past few months, but I think you need to modify the structure, it feels a little.. vague?
2. You are too wired man. No need to watch Oz while you work, no need to have pushbullet sending you text messages. Focus!
3. That daily list thing you started making is working. Get it started the day before if possible
4. Be honest with your clients. They all love to have their stuff as soon as possible. But, you can’t always do it fast and well.
5. Going to sleep at 3am..

If you give me 20 minutes I can come up with another 30..

[JPG] Let’s just start with those 5.

[JP] Works for me. So, we have another chat in a week?

[JPG] OK…

[JP] Not convinced? Want more time? Let’s make it 2. Just make sure you follow through.

[JPG] Ok, two is good. Two is great. Thanks for this. Let’s do this!

[JP] Thank YOU

[JPG] No, Thank YOU!

[JP] No, Thank YOU!

*if { another Thank YOU: end loop }

I live in a classic prewar New York building with a long history. Sadly, the building was a bit neglected for a few decades up until a few years back—just before we moved in—when a new co-op decided to take more control and do a major overhaul.

Fast–forward to today and we have a new roof, new boilers, new elevators, gardens, energy-saving lights, and soon new lobbies! I’ve helped out a bit with the web/graphics part and last year they asked if I’d be interested in taking some photos for the new lobby.

Can’t remember if I said yes or hell yeah!

This brought me to a topic I’ve been thinking about lately: Side Projects.

On one side I’ve listened to a side of the design community where everything is: Charge for everything! Only do work that pays! Don’t work for family! Don’t work for friends! Hustle all the things! Then hustle more! You are not hustling enough! Be like Gary Vee! Become a millionaire! Don’t do work that will bring more of the same work! Why are we yelling??

On the other side, there are people like Aaron Draplin, and Chris Coyier, and James White, whose message is more in the lines of: Do work, rinse, and repeat. That’s it. Of course, be smart and learn how to run a business but just do what you love, who cares.

The reason I’m going on about this is that I’m not a professional photographer. I did take some photography classes in college and have been taking photos as a hobby and, like millions of people, share a passion to capture moments the way I want to remember them. But I don’t intend to sell my next photo at Christie’s.

If I would’ve had thought like the first group I could have invested those hours doing something else, something that gets me closer to retiring at 40. But I said yes to the project because it sounded exciting because I want the place where I live to be better. Because I still learned a lot just by going all over the city capturing places. Because it made me a better photographer and made me understand a bit more about a fascinating world.

Anyhow, the message is: YES take on side projects. Even if they are for your friend or if you don’t expect to get money in return.

This has to be the longest intro for a set of photos. So without further ado here they are:

*Huge thanks to Melissa Strada for putting so much of her own time into this project!

Got around to asking for an invite to dribbble last month at Squares Conference.
Thanks Derek Torsani!

I’ve been doing a lot more web stuff lately, and updating my codepen profile is on my list, but figured it would also be nice to have some graphics up on dribbble.

Check out my account!

I don’t have a set schedule for uploading content there yet (overcommitment issues), maybe something like every weekend or two to keep it fresh.

Below are a few of the first shots I uploaded in their original non-dribbble ratio crop.

These are from a set for FC Harlem’s 2016 season kits. The template I used is not exactly the same as adidas’ 2016 template kit but they ended up looking slick! The team is doing great on their first season so that is a big plus. Go Lions!!

–makes note to add a photo of uniforms later.
–makes another note of adding a footer dribble icon.

There are two things I’m pretty excited about this week.

THING 1: Tomorrow is my Birthday!

Have always liked that my birthday is halfway (minus a month) between the new year and mid-year so I get to reassess all of those new year resolutions.

So far it is looking <Larry David> pretty… preeeetty… pretty good </Larry David>

I have been getting steady, exciting projects. Gone to a few conferences. Learned new techniques and got to travel a bit.

I’ve also failed at a few things. One of them is adding that WORK menu button to my website. Still can’t decide how to code it. SO! decided to set the excuses aside and give a quick update of a few things that I’ve worked on lately, some of which I will be writing about soon.

FC HARLEM

As part of the ongoing growth of FC Harlem, have been working with Irv Smalls on a lot of cool things. Some of them:

New website!

New logo!

Chelsea FC Soccer camps flyers and registration page

NYCFC

Also have been doing a ton of misc stuff for the past two years for NYCFC under the direction of Janine Padilla. One of the things we worked on this year was building a new set of newsletter templates that are responsive and super slim:

The Nature of Cities

Have been working with David Maddox on a few projects based on The Nature of Cities blog.

The Nature of Graffiti

Arts Everywhere for Shawn Van Sluys at Musagetes:

THING 2: This is my 14th post!

Here’s a small bonus gallery of the number that has followed me throughout my soccer years:
*will add some more as I find them/scan them

First row, third from the left.. not sure why I was wearing a hat.

Second row, second from the right. (Or first if you don’t count coach “Profe Pepe”). In the back you can see Azteca Stadium! Didn’t get to visit it but someday.. someday!

College days.

Getting my shirt retired was one of the coolest experiences. To get rewarded for something you just feel lucky to be doing is surreal. In the left is Douey Wright, the best striker I’ve played with and the main reason I got so many assists. In the middle CCNY’s president Gregory H. Williams.