Hello, I’m Ste Grainer.
I’m a designer and developer from Richmond, VA. I design, code, and write with a focus on clarity, usefulness, and delight.
Work
Here are a few of my favorite projects
Writing
About design, development, and other whims
On UXcellence …
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Jul 27, 2019
Make Time to Play: How Breaks, Hobbies, and Boredom Can Improve Creativity
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Jun 27, 2019
Automation for Designers: Starting with Email, Photoshop, and Sketch
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Jun 12, 2019
How to Build a Handy Portfolio Filter
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May 29, 2019
Automation for Designers: An Introduction
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May 22, 2019
Nice Touch: Sharing Podcast Clips in Overcast
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Mar 11, 2019
Organizing Design Work for Your Team (and Your Future Self)
& on my journal
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I Started a Web Comic.
About design and making things for people.
Sep 20, 2019
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My Favorite Podcasts.
Or what I enjoy listening to regularly.
Jun 18, 2019
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One Magical Moment.
In which I remember a visit to Notre Dame.
Apr 15, 2019
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My 2019 Theme: Rebuild.
This year, I’m getting back to building the things I’m passionate about..
Jan 22, 2019
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2018 in Review.
Where I made big plans for 2018, but they all went out the window..
Jan 4, 2019
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My Favorite Music for Focusing.
Sometimes you just need some tunes without lyrics to get down to work.
Sep 22, 2018
Want to follow along?
Once a month, I share new articles I’ve published on UXcellence alongside a broad collection of great resources on design, development, research, writing and more from a diverse set of creators. Occasionally I also give sneak previews of new projects I’m working on.
Sweet Links
Helpful tools, techniques, & things made by others
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Cheat sheet for moving from jQuery to vanilla JavaScript.
Exactly what it says on the tin
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Chart.xkcd.
A charting library to create graphs and charts with a hand-drawn style (similar to XKCD)
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Craft Cookbook.
Recipes for common Craft templates and setups
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Scrnshts.
A hand-picked collection of the finest app store design screenshots
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Netlify Dev.
Run Netlify sites on a local computer
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Medieval Fantasy City Generator.
A nifty tool for automatically generating medieval cities
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Table of Ultimate Gaming.
Really neat modular tables for playing tabletop games
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Shape Up.
A new web book from Basecamp about their workflow and process
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Project Apollo Archive.
Huge collection of photos from the Apollo missions
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Magic Ink.
A web-based book on Information Software and the Graphical Interface
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Zdog.
Round, flat, designer-friendly pseudo-3D engine for canvas & SVG
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Ouch!.
Free vector illustrations to class up your project
Recent diversions
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4 stars. A good mix of science fiction and thriller in a story reminiscent of a good Michael Crichton book.
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3 stars. This was a pretty entertaining post-apocalyptic novel with some fun ideas and a well-told story.
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4 stars. This was a thought-provoking overview of the history of human development.
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4 stars. Well-written, enthralling conclusion to the two-part series started by The Calculating Stars.
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3 stars. A common-sense approach to handling media with family guided by research and a broad variety of experts.
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5 stars. An excellent guide to making comics, from character and story to tools and techniques.