Axel Valdez
Axel Valdez
Axel Valdez
Hello, I'm Axel. I'm a Design Engineer living in Hermosillo, Mexico. I've been working in the software development industry for pretty much my entire adult life, in roles related to both front-end development and design. I lived through the browser wars, the web standards movement, social media becoming mainstream, and the decay of privacy online. Today I'm very much into the indie web and the small web movements. This website is my hub on the web, from work to hobbies and everything in-between.
Latest Posts
I love headphones. I love them because music has always been my safe place and headphones were my way to carry that with me in public, except I never allowed myself to use them. My ideal way of using headphones was a very simple and...
I removed Instagram from my phone two weeks ago. Well, all social apps, but Instagram is the main one for me. I didn’t stop using it, though. Now that they have an iPad app, I installed it there. The idea is to intentionally use it...
Desde muy pequeño he estado asustado con la idea de la muerte en general, la de mis seres queridos, y especialmente la idea de la mía propia. Aunque con los años he podido ir gradualmente y a cierto nivel reconciliándome con la idea,...
— Hi, I’m Mateo Pérez — Hello, I’m Axel Valdez. I just got here yesterday — So, what do you do exactly? — I’m a UI designer, and I also do front-end code. Mostly HTML and CSS, but also some JavaScript, usually for interaction stuff — For...
With time, our memories start jumbling up, tangling, getting fuzzy. I feel like I lived a lifetime from 15 to 20, then from 40 to 45 it was a blink. Some people say it’s the percentage of your life those years represent. I don’t think it...
I’ve been thinking a lot about emotional management, particularly after a challenging year of depression and anxiety. I’ve lived with both for most of my life, but it wasn’t until recently that I was formally diagnosed. About a year ago,...
Musk has made it really easy not to go back to Twitter. Props for that. Threads is slowly creeping into being a true replacement for Twitter, toxicity and all. It may come as a surprise to no one that the problem isn’t the platform, but...
With each day that passes, I increasingly remember the pandemic with a positive twist. It was far from good. It wreaked havoc on my mental health at first, but perhaps it is a blessing that my mind chooses to retain the positive aspects...
Today is the last day of my 30 days without social media. These are some bullet points of my experience: The first two weeks were hell. I constantly reached for my phone and got frustrated. The fear of missing out (FOMO) was strong, but...
There is this quote from drummer Keith Moon I heard from Ira Glass and deeply resonated with me: I am the best Keith Moon-style drummer in the world. It reminded me of my approach to work for my first few years of employment at Nearsoft,...
I used to believe that social media kept me connected to the people I love, like, and enjoy, but I now realize that this couldn't be further from the truth. Although social media gives me the impression that I'm in touch with many...
After six and a half weeks in lockdown, I’m not anxious anymore. I don’t crave going out, and video calls have replaced face-to-face meetings very well: they no longer feel fake. I don’t perceive the screen anymore, but the person on the...
When we moved into the house where my family and I live, it occurred to me that it would be super cool and educational to have a solar system model in the ceiling of my kid’s room. And it would be a lot cooler —I thought— if the...
I constantly find myself looking for free PSD mockups to present work, usually for small things like stickers, mugs, or posters. Today I couldn’t find a decent one for a set of stickers, and instead of buying a premium one, I decided to...
Before photography was invented, people could only see that in front of their eyes. To experience the rest of the world, people had to physically travel, or, if they couldn’t afford it, to use other’s interpretation of remote places via...