Cristina is our UI/UX Designer, and when she’s not designing kick-ass websites and mobile apps, she’s knee-deep in geek fandoms, decorating her home, and blogging on her site.
We caught up with Cristina and found out a little more about her personal life, and how it intersects with her work.
3 Influences
Blogging
Cristina was bullied in high school, and found her escape through blogging and writing. She deems the internet her haven, even in the present day. Back then, she started using LiveJournal as a place to voice her opinions, and she eventually got to know other people in the online journal community. The format of the site forced her to start learning code and thus her passion for blogging and creating websites began. Nowadays, she has her own lifestyle blog where she talks about a variety of topics including design and home decor.
Fandoms and Geek Culture
Cristina is a part of three core fandoms: Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. She discovered Star Wars in second grade when she was perusing the school library, and was drawn to the books. Her parents introduced her to the movies, and she has been a huge fan ever since. She’s even met George Lucas! Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series are Cristina’s top literary favorites. Over the years she’s gone to many midnight book and movie releases. In fact, she saw Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King eight times in theaters when it first came out. These fandoms also leaked into her internet life. She started making sites based off of elements of the fandoms; they provided great creative inspiration.
Performing Arts
She’s an artist in many capacities and has been involved in performing arts for a long time. Cristina has done choir, theater, and band (she plays the flute), and she also went to a fine arts camp for six years. She loves that she has other creative outlets that engage different aesthetic perspectives outside of her job. Her experience with band gave her an elevated appreciation for music. She loves movie soundtracks and listens to a lot of them at work; they motivate her.
2 Strengths
Passion for doing good work: When Cristina gets into projects, she’s very passionate. She loves sharing incremental progress and final products with those she works with. Sharing was ingrained into her as a child, she’s an older sister. Cristina also has a yearning to be proud of all of the work she puts out.
Cultivating her craft: One of the alarming things about this industry is that a lot of people stop learning and Cristina sees how important it is to continue learning beyond the bare minimum to get the job done. She’s found that if she uses the information she’s trying to learn, it sinks in better.
9 Things Cristina Loves
- Her husband, Joshua; he’s her best friend. They’re celebrating 12 years of being together and 6 years of marriage next month.
- All of her animals, Mr. Big especially; he’s a wiener dog with his own Instagram account.
- Yoga, it’s a good way to wind down and concentrate on herself.
- Apple Products, she’s a total Apple fangirl and is always excited about what products they’ll come out with next.
- Shopping with her sister. They tend to frequent the Roseville Galleria and the Folsom area on the weekends, and it’s one of the many ways they spend time together.
- Cristina and her husband spend time serving at their church, where they teach fiscal responsibility. Cristina also helps keep her church’s website up-to-date.
- The passion she has for design is the same passion she feels for home decor. She can look at an empty room and see its design potential. She loves spending time decorating her home.
- Family vacations with the in-laws. Every year, they announce a fun place where the family will all come together from the various locations they’ve spread to over the years.
- Cristina has a lot of happy memories from Disneyland. She got engaged there and it’s become an almost annual anniversary destination. She and her husband have been there at least once a year since they’ve been together.
Her personal Spotify playlist:
Go-to Source to stay on top of Design: Feedly, Dribbble, and Pinterest.
Must-have Apps: When it comes to designing (and sometimes developing), her go-to apps are Sketch for design, IconJar for keeping icons organized, Paparazzi! for taking screenshots, Frank DeLoupe for picking colors, Coda for editing code, Transmit for FTP, and CodeKit and GitHub Desktop for compiling and managing code.
She also uses the default Notes app for just about everything: blog posts, client meeting notes, jotting down ideas, and shopping lists. It allows her to easily access these items on all her devices.
Cristina’s Prim Desk:
- Cristina works off her 27‑inch iMac with Retina 5K display plus an extra Dell monitor
- Her Beats Solo2 headphones help get her in the zone and produce impeccable sound quality when jamming to her favorite movie scores
- She’s currently reading Slide:ology The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations in preparation for presenting at this year’s WordCamp.
- When flushing out design ideas and concepts, Cristina uses her Star Wars Moleskin and Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.5mm
- An array of colorful pencils in a monogram C mug, accompanied by a giant eraser, Keroppi pencil sharpener, and a framed photo of her and her husband occupy the left-hand corner of her desk
