Joey Banks
Design Systems Product Designer
Welcome to the sixth edition of Async Chats! This letter is all about candid conversations with people like yourself. If you’d like some more context see this letter. Otherwise, let’s get into this.
Joey (he/ him) is a Design Systems Product Designer. He recently moved back to Columbus, Ohio to be closer to family and friends, after working in San Francisco for about six years. He is a remote worker.
What is your profession?
I’m currently working as a Product Designer in Design Systems over at Twitter! I’ve been working as a designer for about seven years and joined the team in the winter of 2020.
Why Remote Work?
I was hired as a remote employee at Twitter, and I think the adjustment to remote work has been a healthy one for me. While living in San Francisco, I would spend between two and four hours commuting each day, depending on the day. Those hours added up fast over the years, and to now have the ability to spend that time in more meaningful ways has meant everything to me. I’m able to now get a longer amount of sleep, enjoy the evenings with my fiancée, and overall, just take better care of myself.
What are your interests outside of work?
I love bicycling when I'm away from Figma and away from thinking about design. Having the chance to be outside, explore the city I live in, and find new paths while listening to music or a good podcast has been helpful for my mental and physical health. Last year, I purchased my first Specialized Diverge, and I can't even begin to say how much I love this bike. The winters here in Ohio can be rough, leading to not-so-great cycling weather, so I've been enjoying riding with Peloton to keep in shape when getting outside isn't easy to do. I've never been very good with my hands, but being able to take on small projects and learn more about general home improvement is something that I've started to focus on, too!
What are some of your favorite digital or physical tools?
Oh, I love this question and recently shared a post covering many of the tools and pieces of software I use! As I've said, while tools definitely aren't everything, they certainly can help, and it can be a lot of fun to explore new solutions to help with work and life.
Things 3: When it comes to productivity and keeping track of everything that needs to be done, Things 3 is my productivity app of choice. I've always been the type of person to enjoy a good checklist, but something I struggled for a while with was to capture many of the intrusive thoughts that popped up throughout the day related to tasks that I needed to complete. Things 3 has a concept of an Inbox, which is where I'll note something down as soon as it comes to mind, intending to sort it and add a deadline later on. This whole flow helps me keep my head a bit clear throughout the day, as I can rely on Things 3 to manage almost everything for me.
Figma: For design, I prefer to use Figma for all of my work. I started using the design tool back in 2016, and as I mentioned in my post, I'm not sure there's another piece of software out there that's impacted my life as much as this one has. It's totally transformed how I approach work and projects. I absolutely love designing in the browser and collaborating and sharing easily with others throughout the design process.
Notion: Notion is one of those tools that can be used for just about everything. Right now, I'm using it primarily to help me manage Baseline Design, my fiancée and I's upcoming wedding, home improvement projects, shopping lists, and more. Whenever I'm working on something and need to organize lots of thoughts, plans, or structured data of any kind, Notion is where I turn. It's so versatile, and I really enjoy the process of setting up a page or database to be used.
Other apps worth mentioning:
Hand Mirror: one-click access to your camera, accessible right from the menu bar.
Magnet: the best window manager I’ve found for the Mac.
Pocket Casts: a beautiful and intuitive podcast client for iOS, Android, and web. I'm almost always listening to a podcast!
CleanShot X: a full-featured replacement for Apple’s native screenshot utility.
Do you prefer to work/ communicate asynchronously or synchronously? Why?
When it comes to working asynchronously versus synchronously, I feel that there's room for both! What I love most about asynchronously working is the ability to involve others more often, especially those who may be located in different timezones. Working asynchronously also allows for more time to pause, think, and not have pressure to reply or act immediately. I'll always be someone who advocates for choice in where and how work takes place because I think the ability to choose relieves unnecessary pressure and allows everyone to prioritize what's most important.
Question of the week
Based on this edition of The Gray Area.
As someone that started working remotely during the pandemic, has remote work changed how you work?
The shift to remote work has absolutely changed how I work and when I work. I've also loved the ability to create a little office space of my own that allows me to feel comfortable as I work throughout the day. I tend to stay put in the same area because I've started to experience wrist pain when using my laptop at a spot that's not my desk. This can feel a little limiting sometimes, but it also means that I can also keep work a bit more confined. The past few years have been filled with so much uncertainty and anxiety, but having a room I love where I can do the work I enjoy is something I feel immense gratitude for.
What is something few people know about you?
One thing others may not know about myself is that I'm a person with type 1 diabetes. Although I was only diagnosed a few years ago, T1D has already completely changed much of my life. At times, the chronic disease can be so incredibly frustrating, angering, and terrifying, but I'm thankful for the support network I have and for the community and the openness of others who share the experience. If you're a T1D, please reach out! I'd love to say hi.
Anything new or important you’d like to mention to the readers?
There are a few things that I work on and contribute to in my spare time. I recently formed Baseline Design to provide in-depth Figma training to designers at all levels. I absolutely love meeting and helping others feel more confident and comfortable with the design tool. Another project has been creating and maintaining my iOS 15 UI kit for Figma. This file now has hundreds of components and variants available for anyone to use for free in their own projects and it’s been a lot of fun to work on! If you’re interested to stay in touch, I enjoy talking about Figma, design, and many of the projects and ideas I’m working on over on Twitter @joeyabanks.
Links
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Thanks so much for the feature, Thor! This was really fun to do and I loved the thoughtful questions!