First Substack Post! January 2026

My friend Danielle Urban has been posting on Substack for quite a while (if you like mending and fiber arts, check her out!), but it wasn’t until she posted a round-up of in-progress projects that I thought, “Hey, I could do that! Also I should do that!” I’m hoping that by posting a monthly project roundup I’ll be able remind myself, and eventually others that I’m a designer and creative who makes work (and is making work even when the end product isn’t done yet.)

Bexley Website, Pro Bono Project

Last spring, I’d put out an open call for small businesses and nonprofits to see if there was anyone out there I could make a website for, pro bono. Work was painfully slow and I had plenty of time to work on something that might help me nail down a smooth Squarespace process and put something new in my portfolio. Enter the City of Bexley, who needed help creating a website for their Sustainability Action Plan. The plan has proven a challenge to translate to web, because the original document is quite long and needs to be broken down to be understood by an average person who doesn’t read city plans on the daily. We spent some time talking about the content, then months passed by before we were both free enough to revisit the content in more detail. Finally, this January, I had time to start making headway on the actual Squarespace site.

I’m using a weird and maybe unadvisable process where I’m doing design details on easy parts of the site at the same time as I’m doing information architecture on the trickier, denser parts of the site.

New Majority Capital Foundation Annual Report, Paid Work!

This is supposed to launch relatively soon, though some last minute content changes may stall the launch date (c’est la vie). One of the types of projects I work on semi-regularly is website annual reports for nonprofits. This particular nonprofit aims to uplift underrepresented entrepreneurs and small businesses. I was brought on by Ciampa Creative to help out with some web and interactive components for this project, so I can’t take credit for the visual direction or branding, but I can take credit for suggesting that the timeline scroll horizontally like I’ve seen in a million very cool Awwwards websites instead of vertically like a normal website. It’s very exciting to suggest the cool thing and have the client like the cool thing! So often there’s some sort of technical or budget constraint that would prevent this kind of fun interaction, but I’m stoked that it will (eventually) come to fruition this time.

No photo because it’s not launched yet! Secret!

Knitted tank top!

Nothing to do with my professional life (most of my work projects are either ongoing or not very exciting) but I’ve finally finished a tank top that I started knitting in 2023. Three years ago! That’s as old as my cat! It was my first time really trying to read a garment pattern without any video tutorials so there were quite a lot of parts where I confused myself trying to figure out what the outcome of a given direction was supposed to do to the overall shape of what I was knitting. Below you can see a page of notes that really showcase my confusion.

It didn’t help that I gave myself a repetitive strain injury and took a hiatus from knitting as a whole. But I finished it! Which is what matters.

Watching

Shockingly I have watched a tv show. My gf and I binged The Residence on Netflix in 2 sittings. It’s a very fun whodunnit and if you know me you’ll not be surprised to learn that I find a bird-obsessed detective very charming. It’s also a fascinating peak into the logistical operations and politics thereof of the White House. I feel inclined now to read the book that it’s based on.

Reading

I’ve started reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and am enjoying it so far, but I’m not very far in. It’s a fairly long book so I don’t expect to finish any time soon.

I’ve also been listening to the audiobook of The Life and Death of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. This has been interesting not just from an urban planning perspective but also as a window into New York City in the 1960s. I loved hearing about how people used to leave their spare keys not under the mat or in a lockbox, but with the local bodega guy. I really want to tell all my friends to get our spare key from the bodega guy now!

I’ve actually been feeling pretty uninspired and even burned out on graphic design lately, so I’ve decided to sign up for a type design course in the hopes that it will inspire me again! Expect fonts in progress at the end of February.

For making it through my long winded spiel you get a photo of my perfect baby cat, Tuna! Here she looks disgruntled at being seen bathing.