Rachel Nabors, Web/UI Animations Expert
Tell us a bit about who you are, and what you do now.
I’m self-employed, and work with web animation in any way I can, from designing user interfaces around motion design with big clients to fostering the community and helping build the technologies for us to use in the future.
What’s your favourite thing about your day-to-day work?
Setting my own pace! When I worked at other companies, I always felt I had to look busy. Right now, most of what I do involves intensive research that pays off in big ways later, and I’m never looking over my shoulder. I start every morning with a cup of tea before diving into reading news and research books.
But my favorite thing about month-to-month work is telling stories: whether I’m making a demo for animation tools with Firefox or creating a talk to give at a conference, I love being able to pay visits to people’s minds via storytelling.
I love what you did with Dev Tools Challenger— how does the ball get rolling on a project like that? Does it start with pen and paper, or do you just dive right in?
Index cards, a trip to the library, and a lot of focus. Originally, Mozilla floated an outer space concept, but I countered with a deep sea one-— after all, we know less about our planet’s vast oceans than we do about the surface of Mars. It was also something that I happened to be really passionate about! They liked my treatment and gave me the go-ahead to come up with something that would educate people and showcase Firefox Developer Edition’s design tools. When it came time to build it, though, it started with doodling in a sketchbook and feeding a childhood obsession.
Rachel’s Dev Tools Challenger project, done to showcase the design tools of Firefox Developer Edition.
Let’s rewind a bit: you were raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains and it seems you know how to goose-wrangle. Is tech where you expected to find yourself when you were a kid?
I’ve always struggled to define where I am and where I’m going. When I was a teen, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to be for the rest of my life. But I’d begun to create webcomics, and knew I loved telling stories with them. So I naturally determined that I would be a cartoonist! I dreamed of starting my own publishing company for comics for teenage girls.
What I didn’t realize was that the web was actively replacing print publishing, and that the skills I was using to share my comics were about to become the new lingua franca.
In terms of discovering your interest in design, tech and animation specifically, what’s was your ‘eureka’ moment—the one where, if you look back on it now, sparked your passion?
At the beginning, when I got into tech, there was no “this is for me!” moment. For me was like falling in love with an old friend while being in a relationship with someone else: I was making comics, my first love, to pay bills. But it was hard work, all on my own, before Patreon and Kickstarter; I barely made it over the poverty line. When I would visit the bookstore looking for anatomy references, I’d end up sneaking into the programming section and dragging another big stack of books into the cafe.
I probably should have known something was up, but I was so in love with comics! I’d always loved Flash animations, and I secretly hoped that one day I’d be able to make my comic a cartoon. So when Flash died, I was a bit sad that that was the end of that. But I was learning and using JavaScript, and when one day I found myself reading the CSS Animations spec, I realized I could make animations with the tools I already knew so well! That was an exciting realization that snowballed, but it took a while to get there.
I’d always loved Flash animations, and I secretly hoped that one day I’d be able to make my comic a cartoon
In the end, it took my needing jaw surgery to tear me away-— cartoonists, at least before Obamacare, did not have the finances or insurance to cover jaw surgery, but web developers and designers did, so it was more of a necessity rather than a choice.
And what’s your journey been like since then? Any second thoughts, risks, “I can’t believe I did that!” moments?
It was definitely a different time to enter the industry: a harder time. And for a while, I wished I could go back to comics. “I’ll get this surgery, and I’ll be back! Just you wait for me!” But my audience grew up, and I got super into web development. I had even wanted to move to Portland to be closer to the comics community, only to find by the time I got here, I wasn’t a cartoonist anymore!
My first set of jobs in tech weren’t that great, and those first years in web development were a lot of work; I got fired three months into my first job at the start of the Recession. I was a web designer at several agencies, but it was the Recession, so everything was crap: crap starting salary, crap workplace environment, crap support for growing your skillset or getting mentorship, and crap dialog about diversity.
After getting fired, though, I was determined to show them that they’d made a bad decision in letting me go and really put my back into learning about semantic markup and CSS. I did this by reading books. Today you’d take online courses, but back then, all we had were books! The work paid off and I was able to find another position, which I stayed at for a long time (for this industry!).
After the economy perked up, I moved into frontend development. But it was hard to shake the low pay and lack of mentorship I’d come into the industry with. I started giving talks so I could get to conferences when my employers wouldn’t pay for the continuing education. I learned so much and enjoyed sharing… it sunk in that if I wanted to grow, a “real job” was not the way forward for me.
Animation is one of those specialties that demands creative bleed-through from many skillsets.
So I gave up trying to rise from within and walked out on the whole employment thing. The idea was “travel the world, make cool stuff, give awesome talks-— until more work comes in or someone hires me to keep doing this web animation stuff I dig so much.” And I’m still at it! Working outside the standard employment system let me avoid being typecast as “the designer who doesn’t need to learn code” or “the developer who shouldn’t touch design” or “that person we can dump all kinds of work on because she can do it all.” Animation is one of those specialties that demands creative bleed-through from many skillsets, so I couldn’t have gotten this far without striking out on my own.
Sometimes, you just have to go offroading with your career. Now, I get to be an authority and have the respect that no one gave me in-house. My career and industry recognition have come much farther for working outside the establishment and sharing what I care so deeply about.
That’s a lot of things to balance: comic design, front-end development, programming. Is there a common undercurrent for you, or do they provide necessary variation?
Their common theme is storytelling: communicating information and sharing feelings. Humans are closed systems, and stories are like an API for exchanging our own experiences of the world. I can show you a picture of the trip I took to Manila, but you won’t understand what it was like to be stranded there for a week during unless I tell you a story about it. You won’t know what it’s like being me.
Humans are closed systems, and stories are like an API for exchanging our own experiences of the world.
Even when working with CSS or JavaScript strictly, I was still creating things which told stories: talks, interactive comics, or websites. It’s all stories. If you aren’t telling a story, you aren’t reaching anyone. Probably not even yourself.
Did you have any role models as you went along?
I looked up to one person in the industry a lot, and if I’m honest, I hero-worshipped them. Looking back, I can see that they were a bit of an elitist, and that rubbed off on me. In an attempt to win their approval, I was also unforgiving and strict in “how things should be.” While that’s an easy pattern to fall into in your early twenties, it can harm your career, your community, and for me, it wasn’t the person I wanted to become. Back when I made comics, I nurtured a community around them— I’m a nurturer, not an elitist. It took me a long time to figure that out. Looking up to someone did spur me on to improve myself, but I think today that could be done just as easily— and more healthily— by joining a supportive learning group like Girl Develop It.
You do a ton of teaching on animation— do you ever feel pressure to be a mentor, an example, or a role model for women and minorities in tech?
I do, but it’s hard to find time. Working for myself, I have major issues with funneling all my time, even my weekends, into Making More Business. Web animation money doesn’t just fall into your lap— you have to hustle long and hard. I’m always trying to mentor when I can, answer questions as I can, but sometimes there’s nothing left of me. If I had a regular job, I’d be more active.
As it is, I try to be supportive in other ways, like offering need-based scholarships to my online courses. There’s only so much of me, but I have a lot to give. I grew up poor and identify as female, a combination that doesn’t exactly make success easy, so I’m always looking for ways to both balance my business and help those who need it.
There’s only so much of me, but I have a lot to give.
Is there anything about the internet or technology that you remember from your childhood/early years that makes you feel nostalgic?
Sailor Moon fan club sites! I remember S.O.S: Save Our Sailor was what got me ditching my mother for the library every time we made the long trip to town for groceries. It was a good thing.
If you could do everything all over again, do you think your journey would be the same?
If I had my life to lead over once more, I would make one very key different decision that would probably have led to generally the same outcome but let me skip some really unpleasant experiences. To that Younger Rachel, I would like to say:
“I know you are proud, but don’t let your pride make decisions for you. If there’s something you want, fight for it. Fight to the death for the thing that you want, not to protect your precious pride. Pride cannot replace the things you will miss out on nursing it. Pride isn’t worth anything at the end of the day. Feel free to sacrifice it as necessary.”
Thanks so much, Rachel, for letting me interview you!
Readers can find Rachel on her site, on Twitter, teaching, or giving an awesome talk at a conference near you!
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
jacobvanloon
