For SXSW Interactive 2010, one of my main objectives was to pair faces with feeds, Dribbble and Twitter streams I follow during the week. Having recently discovered his blog, I was particularly interested in meeting Yaron Schoen. His pixel-perfect attention to detail inspired that ideal balance of admiration and design-envy. Have you seen his Happy New Year post or that starry night NyQuil layout? The engaging & mood-enhancing design each post is wrapped in always seem to set the perfect tone for the content within. Little did I know, a 20 minute, 2 1/2 block walk to dinner with my new acquaintance would escalate to a full-fledged labor of love side project before the fish tacos made it to the table.
Even as I sit here now, recalling these events, I am amazed how quickly both our friendship and the DesignSwap project materialized out of that one tiny piece of common ground—a love for web design. From the beginning, I thought that the best part of our collaboration would be the actual articles & design we traded as a final product. After all, I don’t take lightly the privilege of adding content to a site this great. I’ve learned over the past month that, while I find the work itself a joy, the most enjoyable part has been the DesignSwap process. Getting on Skype with Yaron to handle the business of the swap (ironing out specs, etc.) quickly evolved into us joking around, sharing screen shot progress and catching up on life in general. In addition to facilitating the trade of CSS & psds, DesignSwap has facilitated a friendship.
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Written in New York. © 2013