High Five #16 - Full speed ahead 🚀

[3 min] New name, who dis?

Hey,

It felt like this newsletter was missing something.

Let me fix it by giving it a proper name.

It’s now called “High Five.” 👋

Why the change? I have been simply numbering these posts since I started a year ago. But looking back, it missed some identity. This name adds to it.

Positive, catchy, inclusive, versatile. But also explains the intentions and format. Five highlights or updates to report from me personally, plus five (or more) links to inspiration and other stuff out there.

Sounds good?

Let’s try this out…

[This post was written by a human 🙋🏻‍♂️]

It’s week 32 of 2023, and this is my high five:

1. After a small tease on Instagram, we’re working hard to launch our new creative studio together with Marian. It’s called Nollie, and it’s coming soon. 🛹 I'm currently building our new site in Webflow (specifically our first two case studies) while Marian is looking into site content and copy. Make sure to give us a follow on Instagram so you don't miss the launch!

2. I'm going through my past work and archives to select some client work I could share on my socials. It’s been a while, and I need to update my profiles. One of the projects I’d like to highlight is from the time when I was still part of STRV. Before I left, I collaborated with the team on a new fitness app for Arnold Schwarzenegger. My role was to create the initial design concept and creative direction. It turned out great and led to a full-scale app design and dev, which the team finished later with an updated design. The final version recently went public.

3. Speaking of design concepts, I started doing more of those as a service to my freelance clients, and they absolutely love it. A design concept (or short design sprint) was always my favorite type of project. I'm more of a sprinter than a long-distance runner when it comes to execution, and there is quite high demand for such design services, especially for early-stage startups or established companies who want to experiment. Need a design concept? Let me know. This is also something we’ll offer soon at Nollie.

4. I spent a few weeks trying to learn Blender. 3D is something that always attracted me, but I never found the time to do proper research and think about what to do. But now it’s more clear. Long-term, I’d like to learn to create my own scenes and assets so I can use them for Webflow/Framer websites (via Spline, too) or for custom mockups to promote work. Plus, we’re headed into an AR/XR/VR future, so it’s good to be prepared.

5. Believe it or not, I started playing drums. I never played any instrument in my life, but I was talking about trying drums for years. My girlfriend finally gave me the push this past month and booked me weekly lessons. It’s harder than I imagined, but it’s so much fun. I guess I'm in this for life now.

Have a great week, and talk again soon!

A.

Pssst! You can now refer the newsletter to friends and get rewarded for it. 3 referrals get you a personalized thank you video, 5 get you a mention in the next post, and 50 get you $25 in cash. Refer High Five 🙌

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Links & inspiration

Stuff I'm currently digging:

🔤 Tool - Akiflow - I previously had Notion to keep track of my tasks (as a part of my second brain), but it got a bit overcomplicated. I'm now testing Akiflow for planning my days and organizing to-dos instead. So far, it has everything I ever wanted from an app like this.

💻 Website - Opal Camera - I'm a proud owner of Opal, and I'm happy they finally launched a new site promoting all of the camera’s features and a new Mac app. Notice how well-made the photography is on the camera promo page. Insane. The combination of on-scroll 3D effects on the Composer page is lovely too.

📦 Mockups - Bendito - Probably one of the hottest mockup pages right now. The site UX could be better, but those mockup collections are top.

🗂 Resource - Microcopy - Need short text for your website or app? This site has a great collection of headlines, slogans, or system messages you can use.

🗂 Resource - Indieground - Radical graphic design resources for your creative projects? Bold slogan. But looking at the quality of its assets, it stands up to its name. I'm getting a few for sure.