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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My 2020 Theme: Explore.
The name of the game for this year is exploration!.
Jan 3, 2020
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2019 in Review.
Revisiting what worked and what didn't in the Year of Rebuild..
Jan 2, 2020
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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
Sweet Links
Helpful tools, techniques, & things made by others
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The Component Gallery.
An up-to-date repository of interface components based on examples from the world of design systems
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Defensive CSS.
Practical CSS and design tips that helps in building future-proof user interfaces
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Standard Ebooks.
Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.
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Can I DevTools?.
A handy list of what browsers have what dev tools, AND how to use them
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Ten modern layouts in one line of CSS.
A series of really handy basic grid recipes for common layouts
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Emmet Cheat Sheet.
A quick guide to basic Emmet syntax
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Awesome Figma Tips.
Small but awesome tips to work faster in Figma
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a11yresources.
A growing list of accessibility tools and resources
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808303.studio.
A new online music creation platform emulating the sound of the Roland TR-808 drum machine and TB-303 bass synthesizer
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Lazy Campaign Template.
A Notion template for documenting D&D campaigns
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RPG Tools.
A great collection of tools for randomly generating various things for D&D campaigns
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Style Stage.
A modern CSS showcase styled by community contributions, like the CSS Zen Garden of yore
Recent diversions
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5 stars. Wow! A thought-provoking space epic that wrestles with identity, choice, and motivation in brilliant ways.
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3 stars. Entertaining enough, but it undid a lot of the potential of The Last Jedi with a rushed storyline and a mixed payoff.
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4 stars. A fast-paced end to the series with great twists and turns.
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3 stars. Not quite as enthralling as the first book in the series but still very entertaining.
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4 stars. A page-turner about a futuristic society organized into castes that kept me enthralled to the last page.
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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.
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4 stars. A great in-depth exploration of why generalists often have an advantage in innovation and discovery.