2025 in the Rearview
2025 has been a big year. I set out with a loose goal to produce a product of some kind each month. I absolutely did not hit that goal. I did make a number of things though. Produced a number of physical items, finished many languishing personal projects (some years old!), and have three new apps in the App Store. So, success! Because the number was never really the point.
The Why?
I went into design for a number of reasons, but the one I still really identify with is to make things. Long ago it was hand screened posters, and websites (so many tables and image maps), and small books (I still have one with a hand made, water-filled vinyl cover). The past few years have been filled with corporate work and making things for companies. While I’ve tinkered with personal stuff, it’s been on the side and not a real focus. I need to change that.
So much of what I’ve made has been locked to platforms I don’t own or even have much control over (even this site, for now). As everything has been enshittified (don’t give me your “well actuallys…”, I don’t give a fuck), I’ve seen products fail, and it’s been discouraging. New tools have allowed me to have more control over the making of things with my own tools on my own platforms. Yes, you can’t control everything, I’m still subject to the whims of Apple’s App Store policies, but at least the EU and courts are helping there.
New tools and tech. It’s easy to stay in the safe world of the tools you know. But it’s not that long ago we were designing websites in Photoshop (maybe it is a long time ago now? … I’m old). No matter what you think, design has changed irreversibly. We need to work more quickly than in the past, design systems (even if informal) are required, feedback loops with users need to be tighter, and we need to move to building with the same speed. Much of this is helped and enabled with new tools. Whether it’s the latest Figma features or Vibe Coding tools, you need to understand how it works. MCP and whatever else is coming will only make this more important. If this hasn’t come for you yet in your current position, it will.
Basically, the world is changing faster than it ever has in my career, and I need to stay on top of it. As a bonus, getting back to just making stuff is a great way to divert energy from the dumpster fire that is not just the US in 2025, but the unrelenting predatory big tech companies and the endless grasping for more attention and division that is social media. Even if I didn’t product anything the exercise would have been enough.
How did it go?
As I said at the outset, I did not produce a product per month. I did make a bunch of things though. This website got redone, a number of 3D printed items were finished and designed, and three apps are in the iOS App Store: Volunteer Water Monitor, Probly, and Beta Mixer. Not surprisingly, many projects took more than month, and there was a lot of trial and error. But prototypes and MVPs were kept to the month timeline. This was pretty successful and something I’m going to experiment more with in the next year.
Funny enough, the biggest project I’ve taken on in years started in the fall of this year (details on this soon). Instead of derailing me, it actually spurred me to build and launch other projects faster.
Takeaways
New Tools
New tools are incredibly enabling. Not only can I build more quickly, but it is exactly to what I specify in my design and UX. I can make things I could not have a couple years ago, without major investment in time and money. (Now it’s just time!)
Yes, I have lots of reservations about AI, the companies behind the models, and what it is going to do us and our society in the next few years: the shortcuts, the slop and crap it churns out all suck. I also don’t think anyone has answers to this, at least not in a coherent way. But I don’t think the technology is going anywhere, and will get better. So putting blinders on is not an option.
How I Work
Time management has never been my strong suit. I’ve always been able to deliver on time, but ADD-fueled cramming has usually been a large part of my process. This year has made me better at chunking my work into bite-sized pieces and timeboxing work.
Documentation is a thing I have always rolled my eyes at. It remains a huge time suck and I still believe it is largely never used (no one in history has ever opened a SharePoint site). But info like where things live, how services are linked up, test accounts, UAT testing guides, and release processes are super helpful, and using AI to help produce and maintain these has made me be a bit of a believer in documentation.
Owning What I Make
I can’t control everything (me saying this will be a surprise to people who have worked with me), but I can try to take charge of as many parts as makes sense. I have strived to make sure I don’t need to pay somebody to access the code to my work. Tools like Lovable, Flutterflow, Glide, etc. are no longer options. They are one bad quarter away from raising the cost of accessing YOUR work (all of the ones I mentioned have in the last year) or pushing bugs that break your work or keep you from even using the platform (looking at you Flutterflow). Working with something like Cursor avoids all of this, and if that stops working for some reason, I can immediately go elsewhere. I can even spin up a model locally and do everything myself (this is where I think it’s all headed anyways).
What’s Next?
Will I do this again in 2026? Nope. I have some big stuff that won’t fit in this timeline, and it served its purpose. So I have a few new things I’m working on in 2026.
Formalizing the takeaways, taking my timeboxing workflow into a more formal process, formalizing documentation, PRDs, release flows, etc., across my projects.
Bug and task tracking. Lots of irons in the fire make this more important. JIRA can fuck right off, but I do need to find a solution.
Product evolution. I am going to continue to release features and updates for the existing products.
Big new mystery project. This will likely be the focus of much of my new work this year.
Small old projects? I still have a bunch of old half-baked tiny projects out there languishing. I might revive one or two, maybe try a one-week sprint thing?
Figure out a more formal product feedback cycle. This has always been a large part of my "professional" work. I need to bring it into my own projects.
A “House Style” I have bits and pieces of a design system and shares assets, but as I become more of a product design studio I want more consistency in my products.
Lastly, staying on top of the new stuff as it comes out. If you have any tips for this, I'm all ears!
