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Ask DN: It's Saturday! What fun side projects are you working on?

7 years ago from , Señor Designer

I like to take some time on the weekends to work on projects that are unrelated to my day-to-day stuff. Things like trying out new frameworks, designing logos, or working on some of my app ideas. I'm curious what everyone else is working on.

Today I'm working on my freelance studio's portfolio website. I made a neat intro animation for our logo: Masthead

49 comments

  • Varun VachharVarun Vachhar, 7 years ago

    https://winkervsbecks.github.io/joystick

    22 points
    • Joseph Decker, 7 years ago

      Holy shit, imagine designing with your phone — displaying it on a screen... woopwoop

      0 points
  • Shina Memud, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Working on a platform that allows designers to share explanatory details of their design process. Tired of looking at beautiful animated gifs on dribbble

    9 points
  • Steve Berry, 7 years ago

    Working on improving my studio photography skills while hanging out with my dog! Graham the cream colored pooch

    http://thoughtmerchants.com/cream-colored-pooch/

    6 points
  • Sebastian GrazSebastian Graz, 7 years ago

    This doesn't really count as a side project but I just finished my new portfolio couple of hours ago. You guys get to be the first to see it! http://graz.io

    5 points
  • jj moijj moi, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    i'm working on the branding for my own wedding - timeline, logo, floor plan, bouquet, invitation, and tons of other related stuff!

    5 points
  • Peter Hartree, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    I'n working on a Gmail extension for Chrome. [1]

    The extension aims to reduce exposure to new messages (aka distracting triggers) when working with Gmail. It does this by hiding your inbox by default. There's also a timed lockout feature which can help you develop better inbox checking habits.

    I made this for my own use last autumn, but I've returned to it this summer. Aside from the satisfaction of helping users, I'm enjoying working on this simple side project because it lets me run through a complete product design, development and distribution cycle, a process I've previously only experienced parts of (I normally play a technical role). The rate of learning has been pretty high.

    I've done 5 weeks full time equivalent on this so far; the extension now has ~ 150 DAU.

    [1] https://inboxwhenready.org

    4 points
  • Connor NorvellConnor Norvell, 7 years ago

    Recently my side project is invoiceme.io A dead simple invoicing tool for freelancers. Right now there are no accounts, you make it, save a pdf and you're done. But I'm adding a ton of features daily!

    3 points
  • Noam Almosnino, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Great question! I'm on a bullet train traveling to Kyoto, listening to the Longforn podcast! Learning that travel (with work email cut off aka for leisure) is such a good way to let new ideas into your consciousness, that otherwise would be blocked by day to day politics and logistics.

    Love the logo animation!

    3 points
  • Joe Blau, 7 years ago

    I know I'm late, but I'm working on a contextual camera

    img

    You can't really tell what's happening but it's a 3 step process

    1. The app monitors sensor inputs from your phone in realtime: (Activity, Altitude, Audio, Faces, Flash, Focus POI, Heading, Histogram, Low Light Boost, National Celebration, Network, Pitch, Property, Solar Elevation, Speed, Weather).

    2. It programmatically maps sensor inputs to scenes: (Airplane, Automatic ,Automobile, Bokeh, City, Fireworks, Infant, Night Club, Selfie, Sunrise / Sunset, Foodie)

    3. Then uses that scene to calibrate your phones manually camera settings (or goes to auto if it can't figure out a scene).

    All of this happens in real time so all you have to do is press the shutter button and it should theoretically take the best picture possible.

    2 points
  • Andy LeverenzAndy Leverenz, 7 years ago

    I'm currently writing my new book called LUXD: Learn User Experience Design.

    2 points
  • Denis RojcykDenis Rojcyk, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Sketch Responsive UIKit

    https://twitter.com/rojcyk/status/771320816512409600

    2 points
  • Andrew-David JahchanAndrew-David Jahchan, 7 years ago

    Currently working on a free-roaming space exploration game called Odyssey (check out the logo I designed on Dribbble).

    Seeing as it's a personal project, I only work on it on weekends and nights, or whenever I can manage to have free time.

    @Tony Gines: Loving that Masthead logo animation!

    2 points
  • Sagi ShrieberSagi Shrieber, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Shameless plug: I'm currently working on more content for the next Side Project Accelerator :) http://hackingui.com/sideprojects/

    Just did a micro-workshop in SF about it and would love to share the slides with you all here: http://www.slideshare.net/sagish/the-side-project-accelerator-microworkshop

    Love this list! Great projects going on.

    @andyshaw Signed up for Context! Looks awesome!! Going to try it out!

    @peter-hartee installed the extension! Seems like I can really use this :)

    @sebastian-graz love your works man, and that logo you made with the S is spectacular :)

    @rami-james love this store man!! Great work!

    1 point
  • Guilherme Coelho, 7 years ago

    Working on http://Checkin.chat a Slack Bot I've built on my free time that makes it easy to ask private questions to a large group of people on Slack.

    Kind of a one-question team survey kind of though, though my ambition is to let people do real team surveys through Slack.

    1 point
  • Guillaume Palayer, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    A place to share inspirations et resources for talented designers and developers : Magazine du Webdesign.

    1 point
  • Bugsy SailorBugsy Sailor, 7 years ago

    Currently working on launching an outdoor documentary film fest. http://freshcoastfilm.com Then I'd like to re-do my travel website from 10 years ago that, that at the time was a decent site. http://hometowninvasion.com

    1 point
  • Robert AniteiRobert Anitei, 7 years ago

    Creating and collecting free design resources for designermill.com . BTW the website is 1 year old today.

    1 point
  • Arthur Lambillotte, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Working on a short video to introduce my comic book wallpapers website www.kapow.pics!

    1 point
  • Andy ShawAndy Shaw, 7 years ago

    I’m designing the Mac version of Context, a text based task manager for teams.

    The iPhone version went into public beta a couple weeks ago if you’d like to test it out :)

    [usecontext.com](usecontext.com)

    1 point
  • Patrick SmithPatrick Smith, 7 years ago

    https://icing.space/flambe

    I’ve been working on my content-first UI mockup tool, where you annotate with #hashtags and @mentions and it creates a Bootstrap / Foundation / vanilla mockup. There’s even a React code preview.

    Feedback appreciated!

    1 point
  • Saxon Fletcher, 7 years ago

    I'm working on adding collaborators to libraries on gethud.com

    1 point
  • Mikk MartinMikk Martin, 7 years ago

    Nice animation, love the soft transition on opening the logo up.

    This week was learning React app wiring with with Redux. Made 2 simple demos to try it out codepen:

    Mini DN

    Numbers with undo

    Also codepen is great. Really easy to try out ideas without any javascript fatigue™. Have some pretty animations and interactions on there as well.

    1 point
  • Yoav Hornung, 7 years ago

    We created a tool/calculator that helps you estimate your business video cost - http://howmuchtomakeavideo.com

    0 points
  • Jens LukowskiJens Lukowski, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    I am working on a zine for the modern developer ranging from architecture, over UX design to business/marketing

    https://schneide.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/a-zine-for-the-modern-developer/

    0 points
  • Abhinav SrivastavaAbhinav Srivastava, 7 years ago

    Love the masthead animation. Really cool!

    0 points
  • Taylor PoeTaylor Poe, 7 years ago

    Recently released a Google Chrome extension for beating too-many-tabs-open-right-now syndrome. Lets you close and save them to lists on the new tab screen; organizable with drag/drop. http://mono-tab.com.

    0 points
  • Paul @StammyPaul @Stammy, 7 years ago

    Working on the next photoset of the New Zealand collection I just started last week with this: http://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/auckland/ I traveled through New Zealand on a solo trip for about a month earlier in the year, taking some 11,000+ shots and videos (about 850GB total) and will be making detailed photosets for each city along the way. I finally finished the first one, but have probably 10+ left.. this will take some time :) This was a round-up of the whole trip I made a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14brbxKgPKU&feature=youtu.be

    0 points
  • Oz ChenOz Chen, 7 years ago

    Perpetually working on new stuff for the [UX Beginner](uxbeginner.com) community

    0 points
  • Nicolás Joel EnglerNicolás Joel Engler, 7 years ago

    A bit late to the party, but I'm actually working on the coding styleguide for the agency I'm currently working in. In the past couple of months, nothing has given me more satisfaction than the idea of making this a reality, it's already in its early stages and I'm loving it!

    Here' s a sneak peek https://cldup.com/jyXOhp7wZi.png

    0 points
  • Iheanyi Ekechukwu, 7 years ago

    Worked on getting my website redesign deployed and running on S3, check it out! http://iheanyi.com

    0 points
  • Cyrus Henderson, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Still secret right now but working a website, brand and whole new user experience for a food / retail product my parents are spinning up. New and challenging stuff.

    0 points
  • Nicole AydëNicole Aydë, 7 years ago

    Working on a small game project, but that requires learning animation so been watching youtube tutorials

    0 points
  • David KlawitterDavid Klawitter, 7 years ago

    I wish I had something, but I resorted to League of Legends.

    Would love to get to know and work with someone on something interesting!

    0 points