Day 2: Building Craft & Defining Growth
Two separate threads today – one about building a tool, one about building a career.
Craft: An Internal Design Growth Program
Started with a context dump on Midwestern’s internal design process: the 5-phase design thinking framework, AI-augmented tooling across Zoom, Claude, Figma, Notion, Cursor, and GitHub. The problem to solve: build an internal alternative to PIPs and growth plans – something positive, self-directed, and useful during non-billable time.
The output is Craft – a single HTML file. No login, no tracking, no dependencies. Seven pre-populated learning buckets:
- Research & Discovery
- UX & Systems Thinking
- Visual Craft
- Prototyping & Motion
- AI & Tooling
- Communication & Storytelling
- Front-End Literacy
Each bucket contains curated resources, time estimates, and editorial notes on why the material matters. A ghost card holds space for team-defined buckets down the road.
Visual Refinement
Went through two rounds of iteration after the initial build:
Round 1 – standardized typography to DM Sans, tightened border radii, opened up spacing.
Round 2 – full light-mode restyle to match midwestern.com. Cool lavender-gray background, white card surfaces, lime highlight treatment, hairline grid dividers, and a dark “Why it matters” panel pulled from their site’s callout section pattern.
Leapsome Goal Development
In a separate conversation, built out a full FY 26-27 professional development plan: phased quarterly timeline, SMART goals, free learning resources, and a weekly time budget. After seeing the first draft, pulled it back intentionally – less ambition on the code side, more tinkering than building.
From there, expanded into two additional Leapsome goal tracks:
- Department goal – largely already defined, just needed clean framing
- Personal goal – presented as a menu of options, two were chosen
The final pass tightened everything into Leapsome-ready language: summary statements, key results, and a reusable context block for future AI chats.
What I Learned
Writing goals for a platform like Leapsome forces a useful constraint – vague intentions don’t survive the format. The elicitation round before writing made a significant difference in output quality. Getting the right inputs before generating anything is a pattern worth repeating.