Back on the tools — #7
This month I prioritised "learning". I haven't felt this great in a very long time. Here's what I built.
Hey beautiful human 👋,
This month was a very fun and fulfilling month.
I finally threw myself back on the tools.
And it felt f’n great.
I was designing, coding and shipping again.
Here’s something I’ve realised…
As we grow in our careers or age, we often shift from hands-on work to leading and planning.
And to be honest, it’s not really a bad thing.
There will definitely be a time when the tools just don’t give you the same spark anymore.
But that doesn’t mean you have to let the craft go.
It’s not leading OR tools.
It’s leading AND tools.
So this month I wanted to share a few things I sank my teeth into…
Oh, and I definitely plan to package all this ‘stuff’ I’m learning, designing, building and shipping into new educational material on… my new education platform (yes, I said it… ‘new education platform’) 😏
mizko.vc
A new business portfolio site.
BTW the screenshot makes the site look lame. It looks much better in full view 😅
As a designer turned founder, I’ve always wanted to build a simple portfolio to track and showcase my business ventures, and so I did.
Since I was using this opportunity to learn, I took the time to dive deep into Framer, I leveraged Claude to assist me in building and integrating an Active visitor counter (thanks to Supabase for making the process for setting up the database + live sockets so simple), Total visits counter and a set of Animated charts to showcase some key metrics.
Inspiration: Code editors and financial dashboards
Tech stack: Framer, Supabase and Chart.js
morecursors.com
A new homepage for my venture studio.
As you would have learnt from my previous newsletter, I launched More Cursors the other month. A venture studio where my team and I will be focused on launching our own products whilst also taking on a limited number of clients.
The first iteration of the website was good, but not great. I felt as though it was lacking some modern interactions, visual eye-candy and a focus on our key differentiation for anyone that might want to work with us.
This month, with the help of the team, we launched new messaging, improved sidebar interactions (collapses on-scroll and expands when scrolling back up), a significantly more engaging and visual showcase of our work and a few more small easter eggs on the homepage.
Inspiration: Interactions from web apps
Tech stack: Webflow
Cycling club web project
Experimenting with Strava’s API.
My old house mate runs a vibrant cycling club in Sydney with over 1,000 members. I’ve told him I’m keen to help him design, build and launch ‘the best’ cycling club website; for free.
The goal of this project is to give back to the supportive cycling community, help my mate continue growing his club whilst learning new things and re-ignite my neglected creativity.
The other day I spent a few hours in Cursor AI testing Strava’s API (Strava is the ‘Facebook’ for fitness enthusiasts) to see what sort of data I could pull out to showcase on the new cycling club website.
As you can see, I’ve got a thing for showcasing live data on websites. I’m weird like that.
Inspiration: Build a highly engaging, immersive and interactive website.
Tech stack: Cursor AI and Strava API
There are a few other projects I’ve worked on but I can’t show too yet.
But overall, I feel re-energised… motivated again.
I can’t wait to turn all these new projects and learnings into new educational material for all my students.
I know we’re all busy.
We all have an endless amount of excuses and things to do.
But seriously, how much time are you dedicating to ‘learn’ again?
If it’s not enough, I challenge you to spend at least 1 hour a week to sit by yourself and learn something new again.
Useful lil' links
Supabase - Supa easy database and authentication setup.
Chart.js - Super easy charts.
Notion Mail - Notion launched their own mail service.
Aime - Beautifully designed Calendar + To-do app.
Flux AI - The most insane and realistic image gen.
Webflow Optimize - A/B testing for Website sites.
Google Fonts - Google updated their fonts library UX.
Things I'm vibin'
Breakfast obsession - This might sound ridiculous but I use to feel lost when it came to breakfast choices. I never knew what to have. Cereals are too sugary, yogurt gets boring and toast is meh. Recently I’ve been obsessed with this new health combo. Oats, flaxseed, chia seeds, apple, crushed up walnuts, blueberries and a dash of honey.
Apple XDR as a side monitor - OK… I know… I know. A $12,000 AUD monitor shouldn’t be used to “view emails”. But since I’ve moved all my office gear back home, I needed to utilise my XDR in some way. It was way too big to be used horizontally, so I flipped it vertically. What I’ve come to realise is that, it’s perfect for having 3-6 windows opened at a time. I love it.
Asic superblast 2 - If you’re looking for the perfect pair of runners. The Asic superblast 2 is my ultimate choice. I’ve grabbed myself two pairs with zero regrets.
How can I help you?
Here are a few ways I can help you crush your career goals (just like me):
💼 Build confidence in end-to-end UX/UI design (10 hours) - You’ve mastered the tool and UX research and now you want to learn how to lead, design and manage a project end-to-end. Dive deep into every little step alongside me with a real-world project.
(300+ designers)
🖥️ Master Figma (10 hours) - Become an expert in Figma so you can get more done; faster and better. This isn’t just a technical course about features, it’s an end-to-end course on how Figma fits into a real-world project.
(7,900+ designers)
🔍 Dive-deep into UX Research & Strategy (10 hours) - Learn how to run UX and business research to make more strategic and data-informed decisions for larger scaled projects and improved stakeholder management.
(800+ designers)
⚡️Design 10X faster with 8,000+ pre-designed components - We just launched v.2.7.1. If you’re starting every project from scratch, you’re probably wasting a lot of time. Leverage Shipfaster UI to speed up your process dramatically.
(3,400+ designers)
🚀 Looking to launch a product? - At More Cursors, my team and I help founders strategise, design and launch world-class products. Feel free to book a call directly with me if this is something you need.
That's it for this month's newsletter!
Let me know how you found this month's edition. What did you love or dislike?
It means a lot to me.
Mizko
I love these updates -- so inspiring to see how productive you are. Gives me a monthly kick in the pants to continue upping my skills and craft.
After starting a new UXD role this month @ a financial products org, I've been going down the web accessibility rabbit hole. One of those things that in fast-paced environments always gets back burner'ed / 80-20-rule'd. Getting some great insights while getting IAAP certified on better heuristic approaches!
How great is getting back on the tools? My current role has me off the tools so much, every chance I get to bust out some coding, or otherwise do some delivery work, it just feels so right!