Andrew Fox

Its been a busy old time these past few weeks and I’m glad to finally have some time to wind down the current year, ready to start afresh for the new one.

In fact the whole year has been a busy one - but an interesting one at that!

Its always important to take time to reflect in order to understand how you’re tracking and make sure you are headed in the right direction. Here are what I think my professional achievements for this year have been and some new goals for 2009.

2008 Achievements

- Getting Organised
You’ve probably seen my post on Basecamp. Its not the most exciting of subjects but has helped in personal and collaborative efficiency – Greater efficiency = more time  = more work!

- Understanding my position in design
You might think a designer is a designer but there are so many areas of design and I guess it’s the fact that I’m interested in pretty much all of them that gives me a hunger to learn. Saying that, I’ve always felt like a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. 2008 has helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses to enable me to align and progress in the year to come.

- Blogging & Social Media
Don’t take this excuse for a blog as me saying I know everything about social media just because I have a Wordpress site and write a few badly written blogs, but this year I have really got my head around social media and how it is having such a huge influence on the web and the way we communicate. Of course a big part of this is how useful this is in business and how it is shaping the internet – and of course I’ve launched a very successful social media project myself which we will to continue to progress in 2009!

- Gained a deeper understanding of business
Well I could say this every year but this one has been a big one for internal workings and getting to grips with business issues. It can only lead to greater efficiency in my work – I hope!

- Continuing to work with great people on great jobs
Okay so this is a bit of a cop out but its true! All my clients and colleagues that I have continued and started to work with this year have been a pleasure to work with and if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have worked on and launched some great sites this year.

2009 Resolutions

- Design Even More
As you can see from above, 2008 was a great year for organisation and now that I have put some strong foundations in place in terms of efficiency and understanding, its now time to get creative again. Plus without great design to add to the business knowledge, truly great products will not come to fruition

- Brush up on code & get closer to technology
Something I’ve been meaning to do for ages now but working with developers, as great as it is, makes for a lazy designer! I’ve also had little time in 2008 to explore and get to grips with things like our dedicated server so 2009 is a time for that also.

- Go to a conference and exhibition or two.
This was a goal at the start of 2008, which never really happened. I managed to visit my local Skillswap Brighton as well as new designers which was great but its time to make an effort next year and pay a visit to FOWD, Dconstruct, FOTB …any others?? …as well as get involved more with the community!

- Align myself & my web site.
This follows on from understanding my position in design, which I feel I gained in 2008. I now need to channel this and make something of it. Part of this is to do a proper job on my web site and align it to what I actually stand for.

- Submit my sites to a gallery …& win awards??
Other than occasionally skimming for inspiration, CSS galleries and awards are something I’ve never really bothered with.  Its would be nice to become more of a part of this.

Wish me luck and watch this space!

* Image courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/definetheline/3154942245