I just got back from Myrtle Beach with my family for our first ever vacation since having four kids. We had a great time despite our van’s AC going out on the 6 hour drive home while our 1 year old, Nixon, threw up multiple times all over himself and his carseat. Nothing like hot air and a pungent vomit smell to really cap off a good vacation. But, on a non-throwuppy note, you can see some of the good times had on Instagram.
This vacation was a line of demarcation for me in a lot of ways. Last fall I started writing a lot about using Illustrator for UX design, which I very creatively called AIUX. This was a new thing for me, but at the start of 2015 I was really swamped with client work.
I had four different projects going on in January– two wrapping up and two starting taking up all of my time and then some for the first quarter. In the middle of all of that I also spoke at Squares Conference and attended Epicurrence.
I used the extreme time constraint of so much client work as an unmovable excuse for my lack of follow through on my own AIUX project. Looking back, yes it was very very busy, but I know I could have published something once a week or every other week at least. Once the momentum from the previous fall had vanished, I gave into the excuses. Though I did design a typeface, which I’ll release soon.
Back to the line of demarcation though. I’m back from the beach and my client work is now intentionally very light. I’ve saved up some cash and said no to a bunch of projects that have come my way in the last month. I’m investing in myself for the remainder of June and July to put my head down and create my first AIUX online video course. Just like I mentioned on the current AIUX page, the course will be an in-depth look at using Illustrator for responsive UX design. It will be targeted at designers, developers, or anyone who has little to no responsive design experience and wants to gain a solid foundation for the strategy and tactics that go into a responsive design project.
The course will provide students a foundation for UX thinking behind design decisions across devices and the tactical Illustrator skills for creating and organizing this information in a fast and efficient way. This will be a big course that I’m dedicating a full 6+ weeks to creating. My goal is to have the beta version ready by August 1, 2015. From there I’ll invite a small number of people to enroll in the course for the first trial run.
Will this work? I don’t know, but all of this information is what I’ve learned the hard way over the last decade and what I can condense into a solid process and workflow– one that has kept me in a successful independent consulting business for the last 7 years. I’m investing a ton of time and taking a big risk by continuing to deflect client work, but I can’t keep this as an idea any longer. It’s time to set it free. I’ll write more updates as I make progress.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback or want to tell me I’m crazy, please do so. =)