The women that made me a better designer

Posted on March 8, 2017

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A while back when browsing Twitter for new insights and learnings, I noticed that most of my go-to developers and designers were women. Being so accustomed to the male dominance in the field of computer science and engineering, I found this pretty cool!

With International Women’s Day taking place today, I wanted to give these women a shout-out. You most likely know who they are already. But if not, allow me to thank and introduce…

Lea Verou

Lea Verou (@leaverou) is an author and tech speaker and is currently pursuing a PhD at MIT, doing research in Human-Computer Interaction. She’s also one of seven (!) Invited Experts at the W3C CSS Working Group.

I love Lea’s book CSS Secrets. I have it close to my desk, both at home and at work. It definitely made me step up my game as a web designer.

Almost on a daily basis, I use Lea’s contrast ratio measuring tool for accessibility reasons. It’s available at leaverou.github.io/contrast-ratio.

Thanks Lea!

Sara Soueidan

Sara Soueidan (@sarasoueidan) is an award-winning freelance front end developer, author and speaker. She works with clients all over the world.

Her Twitter feed is a never-ending source of goodies for web developers. If I don’t know what she’s talking about, I know I need to give my development skills some love.

Sara’s also got one of the best designed portfolios I’ve seen. Good use of photos and rich and excellent in-depth descriptions of how her projects were carried out. Look and behold.

Thanks Sara!

Jen Simmons

Jen Simmons works as a Designer Advocate at Mozilla and is the host and executive producer of the award-winning web design podcast The Web Ahead. She also a popular public speaker at tech conferences.

When I think of Jen Simmons I primarily think of her masterful skills in CSS, especially CSS Grid Layout. This new and great way of doing layout for the web is something every web designer should know by now.

If you don’t know much about CSS Grid Layout, make sure to visit labs.jensimmons.com and learn.

Thanks Jen!

Rachel Andrew

Rachel Andrew (@rachelandrew) is a web developer, public speaker and author. She has more than 20 years of experience in her field.

Just like with Jen Simmons, I’m mostly familiar with Rachel through her awesome skills on the topic of CSS Grid Layout. Make sure to check out her book Getting Ready For CSS Grid Layout available through A Book Apart.

She’s also written the great book HTML5 For Web Designers together with Jeremy Keith.

Thanks Rachel!

Val Head

Val Head (@vlh) is a specialist in web and user interface animations. She’s the author of the book Designing Interface Animations, curates the UI Animation Newsletter and is a popular public speaker.

Animation is a powerful tool to have in your designer toolbox. If you know how to write CSS3 Animations without messing up the syntax (too often) and really want to learn why and how to design animations in user interfaces, I’d suggest getting familiar with Val and her work.

Thanks Val!

Samantha Warren

Samantha Warren (@samanthatoy) is a former employee of Twitter, who know has the role of Experience Design Manager at Adobe.

Samantha’s the maker of the excellent design deliverables concept called Style Tiles, which I’m particularly fond of.

I’ve used Style Tiles at clients such as SVT and for hobby projects. It has saved me a lot of time and made collaboration easier when putting together graphic design for clients.

Thanks Samantha!

Finally

Thank you so much for making great things and sharing your skills. You’re awesome! :)

/Alexander