I'm writing this post for myself because I like getting all nostalgic and this will make it easier. Perhaps you will find it interesting.

2012 marked my 4th full year of self-employment and was by far my most successful year. My company, Studio MDS, LLC has employed me and my wife as salaried employees for the last few years and it's been great. It's amazing what being debt free and having a cash reserve will do for your business and personal life. I'll probably right a much longer post about that later. Anyways, here are some highlights from 2012.

Professionally

  1. Lead the creative and visual direction for the AT&T Uverse Mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Windows 7 with the 2012 UX Grand Prize winning team at Mobients, Inc. This was a super fun project to work on and really challenged and stretched my mobile UX/UI skills. Huge shout out to Eric Irvin, Merewyn Heath, Ruby Velle, Natacha Ruivo, Sandy Fershee, Jaqueline Walsh, Yvonne Cavaria, and Matthew Perry. Such a fun group to work with.

  2. Lead the UX and visual design for a new iPhone app called Moment Reel. Adam Saladino handled the development and did a phenomenal job.

  3. Work heated up in Singapore early in the year as Dan, Ian, and myself completed 6 big 360º projects for City Developments Limited (CDL), one of Singapore's leading property developers. We've been selected as their vendor of choice for their future developments.

  4. Dan, Ian, and myself also completed the Singapore National HeritageFest 360º, a project for the Singapore National Heritage Board, which showcases 6 national monuments and the stories behind them. The project won a FWA Award. Woot!

  5. Designed a new site for my church athensvineyard.com Thanks to Kelvin Ling for the dev work!

  6. The long overdue studiomds.com was finally launched in September and nabbed an Awwwards site of the day. Woot! Shout out to Dan for helping with the content and Adam Clark for development. I also got my hands super dirty with SCSS during the project. I lurved it.

  7. I lead the UX and visual design for a new healthcare iPad app for Shareable Ink, a Nashville based company that received $5M in Series B funding in June of 2012.

  8. I lead the creative and visual direction for a new private label Movie Theatre iPhone app by National Cash Register (NCR) along side Two Way Dialogue and Maestral Solutions.

  9. Completed a number of other panorama tours in including, Matchbox Concept Hostel, Le Article Furniture Boutique, Stone Summit Climbing, and 3 hotel tours for Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Hopefully I can post some more mobile case studies soon!

Family

  1. My son Justice, turned 2 on January 29, 2012. We celebrated at home with a low key family party. At some point during the year Justice learned to pedal and balance Noah's bicycle with no training wheels all by himself! 2 years old people! Proof.

  2. My lovely wife Shana turned the big 3-0 on August 11, 2012. She's two months older than me so needless to say, I had fun being 29 for 8 weeks while she was 30. She did not share in my excitement. It was light hearted, honest. We had a super fun dinner party with a few friends in downtown Athens. Sushi, drinks and hilarity ensued.

  3. My son Noah turned 5 on August 13, 2012. I can't believe my first born is already 5. Man time flies. I was still working a full-time job when he was born and so was Shana. When Noah turned 1, Shana was able to take on the most difficult job that I know of, being a stay-at-home mom. I'm super grateful to have my wife at home raising our beautiful children. You're the best baby!

  4. Shana and I celebrated our 7th year of marriage! We treated ourself with a trip to New York for 4 days with NO kids, thanks to "Nan," Shana's wonderful mom! We had an amazing time and even met up with Dan, who was visiting from Singapore. We used Airbnb for the first time and really liked it. However, our host did not tell us that there were NO towels (due to sanitary reasons!?) so for the first 2 days we shared 1 single dishtowel as our primary means of drying off - that and drip drying in front of the wall AC unit.

  5. After the two months of harassing my wife subsided, I myself finally hit the big 3-0. It feels weird to say that I'm 30 because I just don't feel 30. Weird I know.

  6. My beautiful daughter Isa turned 1 on December 1, 2012. She has truly stolen my heart! We had a joint party for her with my little niece Audrey, who also turned 1 on December the 4th. Isa is walking a ton and her favorite word is "Dada!" heart melts

  7. My wife and I got our house painted and got new windows installed. Home remodeling is fun but slow, especially when you do everything on a cash-basis. Lot's more to do but it's coming along.

I've been blessed beyond all measure and thank God so much for allowing me to have such a full life.

Goals for 2013

I'll get more specific on these soon but for now here are some high level things that I'm working towards.

  1. Go to bed by 10pm each day and wake up at 5am
  2. Stick with a bible reading plan daily
  3. Write 250 words minimum daily
  4. Read a book a month
  5. Go on a guys trip
  6. Go on 3 or more family vacations
  7. Learn more Spanish (enough to be conversational)
  8. Learn 3 epic guitar solos
  9. Reach 180 lbs. by June 1st
  10. Watch calories better and start running more frequently
  11. Gross 75% more total income for Studio MDS in 2013
  12. Send more pictures to my grandmother in California

So far I'm 4 days into 2013 and I'm feeling incredibly motivated. I still need to get some solid measurable items in place for each goal, so perhaps I'll write about that in another post.

What are your goals?