Last week we held our first “Design Collaboration Meetup” connecting across product, dev, support, marketing, and human resources. And of course … design! At the gathering we were able to distribute our new playbooks and connect IRL in super high-bandwidth form compared with how we normally operate as a fully-distributed company.
The gathering was opened by our Head of Design Ops Alison Rand. And although it was in the heat of the Arizona summer, the gathering felt cool, calm, and refreshing in a way that is testament to Alison’s leadership.
We got to celebrate the fact that the legendary Chermayeff, Geismar, Haviv worked on our Jetpack logo — which was originally designed by Automattic Designer Dave Whitley.
And we got to hear from our CEO Matt Mullenweg about the history of WordPress and how it all came to be. Matt’s talk was entertaining, funny, and made you realize how a system like WordPress can come to be solely through the power of a community that loves and wants to be together.
We took a field trip to Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Taliesin West — it was a beautiful site that I recommend everyone have a chance to visit. But you definitely don’t have to go during the hottest month around for Arizonans ….
And there were a lot of cactus plants. I’m talking … LOTS.
The views were stunning.
And the fine company was unparalleled.
The event was officially closed by none other than one of our newest Automattic Designers, the legendary Jeffrey Zeldman.
I’ve learned to never look at the cactus 🌵 the same way again!
Automattic Design 