Active Personal Projects

If you only look at one thing of mine, make sure it’s these:

• My Blog
  Personal opinions on all things web related. 2012–Now
• My Notes
  Personal notes on other people’s writing plus my 2¢. 2019–Now
• Icon Galleries
  Personal collection of beautiful icons for iOS, macOS, and watchOS — designed, developed, and curated by me. 2010–Now
• o(m)g:image
  A fun side project where you try to guess an article’s title from its social share image. 2024
• Flying J Pies
  Making pies and documenting the process: pic or it didn’t happen. 2017–Now

Social Validation

People I’ve worked with are saying:

• Tim Meaney
  I’ve had the pleasure of working with [Jim] for a decade, he’s one of the best.
• Matt Brophy
  [Jim] crosses the boundary between designer/developer better than anyone I've worked with.
• Michael Jackson
  Jim is someone I've followed for a while, and someone who has a deep understanding of and appreciation for the web.
• Michael Flarup
  [Jim’s] as much an icon nut as me [and] he’s got great curation abilities.

People who enjoy my writing are saying:

• Eric Bailey
  Anything by Jim is an insta-read, as far as I’m concerned.
• Sara Soueidan
  I, for one, love seeing [Jim’s] posts in my RSS reader.
• Jeremy Keith
  damn, do I enjoy reading [Jim’s] blog.
• Chris Coyier
  Jim was blowin’ minds the other day when he blogged…
• Dave Rupert
  I love the frequency and depth of Jim’s thoughts, he uses his blog really well.
• Om Malik
  A fantastic read from one of my favorite bloggers/web-technologists, Jim Nielsen.
• Rich Harris
  …a really good blog post by [Jim]
• Stefan Judis
  If you’re not following Jim or are subscribed to his blog, you’re missing out!
• Chris Ferdinandi
  [Jim] published a post...that hit on so many things I’ve experienced and feel strongly about.

Sites and newsletters are linking to my writing:

• CSS Tricks
  Newsletter #202, #213, #218, #220, #246, #249, #256, #284, #289, #297, #300 and more.
• Smashing Magazine
  Newsletter #443, #362, and more.
• JavaScript Weekly
  Issue #573.
• Frontend Focus
  Issues #598, #595, #541, and #444.
• Bytes
  Issues #107, #174, and #246.
• Sidebar.io
  Linked in over 20 daily newsletters.
• Changelog
  News from Feb. 2023, Mar. 2022, and more.
• Frontend Masters
  Linked in Dec. 2023, Feb. 2024, and more.
• Hacker News
  Triggered 500, 300, 200 comments and more.
• Lobsters
  19+ stories across 9+ submitters
• HeyDesigner
  Issues #82, #162, #182, #190, and #196 in 2021 alone. More in other years.

People who enjoy my side projects are saying:

• Brian Lovin
  Love these [sites] Nicely done [Jim] Project: Icon Galleries
• Val Head
  Super helpful tool for visualizing Sass colour functions. Project: SassMe
• Sarah Drasner
  my new favorite toy. Project: SassMe
• Jeremy Keith
  It’s weirdly gratifying to see a hastily-written sarcastic quip tuned into something real. Project: canistilluse.com
• John Gruber
  Take my money — I can’t wait to devour this book. It looks so good. Project: The iOS App Icon Book
• John Gruber
  A sibling volume dedicated to Mac app icons? Hell yes. Project: The macOS App Icon Book

Podcasts and publications are interviewing me:

• JS Party
  #288: Refined Thinking
• ShopTalk Show
  #504: Blogging, App Icons, Color, and Images
• Postlight Podcast
  #314: (Icon)ic Design
• People and Blogs
  P&B Jim Nielsen
• ShopTalk Show
  #605: Subversive URLs, Blogging + AI, and Design Engineers

Archived Personal Projects

• App Icon Books
  Crowdfunded books celebrating the history and art of app icon design for iOS & macOS (I helped design and write them). 2018-2022
• html
  Small, zero-dep JS library for doing JSX-like syntax with tagged template literals. 2022
• Can I Still Use?
  A satirical website illustrating the problems of normalizing habitul breakage on the web. 2021
• Readlists
  Mixtapes for reading. Collect info across the web into an ebook or feed for reading on your favorite device. 2021
• Netlibox
  An experiment in publishing from Dropbox to Netlify. Published on Netlify’s blog. 2018
• Gimmie Dat iCon
  A tool to fetch full-sized icon artwork from the App Store. Published as a tutorial for Web Design Tuts+. 2015
• Logo Integrity
  How far out of focus can an logo be yet remain recognizeable? My experiment to find out. 2014
• TeamColors
  A color reference for your favorite sports teams (made during a hackathon). 2013
• SassMe
  A tool to visualize Sass color functions without compiling (initially made during a hackathon) 2012

Employment

• Founding Engineer
  @ Quadratic: Design, code, and writing for a startup building a next generation spreadsheet powered by code. 2023–Now · Remote
• Director of Design
  @ Remix: Design, code, and writing for a web application framework startup. Acquired by Shopify. 2022 · Remote
• Director of Design
  @ SageSure: Design, code, writing, and team leadership at an insurance company with 10x growth during my tenure. 2016–2022 · Remote
• UI Engineer
  @ Timshel: Design and code for a startup building a platform to empower nonprofits, brands, and other social impact orgs. 2016 · Remote
• Design Engineer
  @ Postlight: Design and code as a contractor building software tools for clients like Time Inc. 2016 · Remote
• Lead Designer
  @ Kindling: Design and code for a startup building social innovation software. Acquired 2016. 2012–2016 · NYC
• Web Designer
  @ Arc90: Design and code for a digital agency and its clients. 2012 · NYC