About my journey

Starting point, focus, and personal life

I’m a designer and maker with a focus on developer experience. Currently working at Linear.

Originally from Brittany, I grew up with my first computer running Windows XP Whistler. Early in my teenage years, I explored interactive design and programming, and in 2010, at age 14, I created my first themes and tweaks on Cydia for my jailbroken 4th-gen iPod touch. It marks my debut as a designer, engineer, and maker.

I live now in Paris, France — where I continue to explore software and create stuff, sometimes solo and with my friends and peers. I find the most joy in my work when I’m hands-on with engineers, building features, and polishing details. In 2018, I focused most of my work on the topic of developer experience by first working on the topics of design systems, tokens, formats, and APIs.

When not in front of a keyboard, I like building LEGO sets, experimenting with new espresso recipes, and listening to Hip-Hop vinyl records. These three activities help me a lot in disconnecting my brain from work, as they require me to focus on my other senses: the rigidity of colorful plastic bricks, the smell of a freshly brewed café cubano, and the sound of the diamond tip that follows the record wiggles as it turns.

On platforms

DMs are open — feel free to reach out.

Find me on Read.cv
Find me on GitHub
Find me on Figma
Find me on Layers

About my journey

Starting point, focus, and personal life

I’m a designer and maker with a focus on developer experience. Currently working at Linear.

Originally from Brittany, I grew up with my first computer running Windows XP Whistler. Early in my teenage years, I explored interactive design and programming, and in 2010, at age 14, I created my first themes and tweaks on Cydia for my jailbroken 4th-gen iPod touch. It marks my debut as a designer, engineer, and maker.

I live now in Paris, France — where I continue to explore software and create stuff, sometimes solo and with my friends and peers. I find the most joy in my work when I’m hands-on with engineers, building features, and polishing details. In 2018, I focused most of my work on the topic of developer experience by first working on the topics of design systems, tokens, formats, and APIs.

When not in front of a keyboard, I like building LEGO sets, experimenting with new espresso recipes, and listening to Hip-Hop vinyl records. These three activities help me a lot in disconnecting my brain from work, as they require me to focus on my other senses: the rigidity of colorful plastic bricks, the smell of a freshly brewed café cubano, and the sound of the diamond tip that follows the record wiggles as it turns.

On platforms

DMs are open — feel free to reach out.

Find me on Read.cv
Find me on GitHub
Find me on Figma
Find me on Layers

About my journey

Starting point, focus, and personal life

I’m a designer and maker with a focus on developer experience. Currently working at Linear.

Originally from Brittany, I grew up with my first computer running Windows XP Whistler. Early in my teenage years, I explored interactive design and programming, and in 2010, at age 14, I created my first themes and tweaks on Cydia for my jailbroken 4th-gen iPod touch. It marks my debut as a designer, engineer, and maker.

I live now in Paris, France — where I continue to explore software and create stuff, sometimes solo and with my friends and peers. I find the most joy in my work when I’m hands-on with engineers, building features, and polishing details. In 2018, I focused most of my work on the topic of developer experience by first working on the topics of design systems, tokens, formats, and APIs.

When not in front of a keyboard, I like building LEGO sets, experimenting with new espresso recipes, and listening to Hip-Hop vinyl records. These three activities help me a lot in disconnecting my brain from work, as they require me to focus on my other senses: the rigidity of colorful plastic bricks, the smell of a freshly brewed café cubano, and the sound of the diamond tip that follows the record wiggles as it turns.

On platforms

DMs are open — feel free to reach out.

Find me on Read.cv
Find me on GitHub
Find me on Figma
Find me on Layers

About my journey

Starting point, focus, and personal life

I’m a designer and maker with a focus on developer experience. Currently working at Linear.

Originally from Brittany, I grew up with my first computer running Windows XP Whistler. Early in my teenage years, I explored interactive design and programming, and in 2010, at age 14, I created my first themes and tweaks on Cydia for my jailbroken 4th-gen iPod touch. It marks my debut as a designer, engineer, and maker.

I live now in Paris, France — where I continue to explore software and create stuff, sometimes solo and with my friends and peers. I find the most joy in my work when I’m hands-on with engineers, building features, and polishing details. In 2018, I focused most of my work on the topic of developer experience by first working on the topics of design systems, tokens, formats, and APIs.

When not in front of a keyboard, I like building LEGO sets, experimenting with new espresso recipes, and listening to Hip-Hop vinyl records. These three activities help me a lot in disconnecting my brain from work, as they require me to focus on my other senses: the rigidity of colorful plastic bricks, the smell of a freshly brewed café cubano, and the sound of the diamond tip that follows the record wiggles as it turns.

On platforms

DMs are open — feel free to reach out.

Find me on Read.cv
Find me on GitHub
Find me on Figma
Find me on Layers

I love making stuff

Alongside my day job, I like to spend part of my free time into various projects, adding features to my personal website, exploring APIs possibilities, creating tools for designers, engineers and makers, and of course having fun.

Stuff

Category

Date

Launched Framer/Figma Sync

Shipped a project

Oct 2, 2024

40,000 downloads for Styles to Variables

Hit a project milestone

Aug 29, 2024

40,000 downloads for Styles to Variables

Aug 29, 2024

Linear

New UI

Released a feature

Mar 27, 2024

Linear

New UI

Mar 27, 2024

Launched Styles to Variables

Shipped a project

Jun 26, 2023

Some facts

Here are some anecdotes and quick facts about my debuts as a designer, hobbies, past work, and my current life.

001

Started practicing interactive design with themes for jailbroken iPhones at 14

And it was a real mess at first, as I didn’t know anything about icons or interface design. But with time and practice, I fell in love with all the possibilities Cydia (more or less an AppStore for jailbroken iPhones) offers for designers and developers like me.

I started my journey with Photofiltre Studio X, then downloaded a hacked version of Photoshop CS5 to be able to follow the community tutorials on masking, shadows, and other effects... As I was too young to have a PayPal account, I had to ask my mother to create one to publish my first paid theme on this hidden marketplace.

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002

Never stopped playing with LEGO bricks and sets

In fact, I continued to play while in high school, in university, and then college, from City, Star Wars, or Mars series to my current Architecture and Vehicles collection, these little bricks help me to stay away from the screen every once in a while.

I’m not a huge collector anymore, but I’m still obsessed with certain pieces, and I’m always trying to find good excuses to buy some kits.

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003

Hip-Hop listener

My favorite French rappers are Alpha Wann, Népal, Nekfeu, Fixpen Sill, Josman, and Triplego. And for the U.S., I enjoy listening to Kid Cudi, ScHoolboy-Q, Kendrick Lamar, Mobb Deep, and Joey Bada$$ songs.

I would love to know what's your favorite ones and discover new bangers or artists, let me know on Twitter!

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004

Rachet & Clank saga big fan

I started playing this awesome game on my PlayStation 2 with the first opus. I kept following this saga over the years and console generations.

I loved playing the Rift Apart opus on PS5 + the new features using adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. Beating again Dr. Nefarious is still fun — even after more than 20 years since the first opus.

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005

Big fan of David Fincher's work

I watch and rewatch again and again a lot of his movies, especially Fight Club (one of my favorites), The Social Network, and House of Cards. Among all the commonalities of his works, what I particularly appreciate is his talent for telling a story, very often tinged with drama and crime.

From a more cinematographic point of view, I appreciate his control of his scenes, his deep sense of detail, and his compositional choices in every movie.

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006

Wrote an essay on design systems in 2018 during my 4th year of study

During 6 months, I had the chance to interview Brad Frost and Koen Bok and dig into design systems and their impacts, on product teams and end-users.

Since then, I developed a strong interest in design operations, systems, and APIs, inspired by the work of Benjamin Wilkins, Diana Mounter, Dan Eden, Matthew Ström, Jina Anne, Nathan Curtis, Tatiana Mac, Yesenia Perez-Cruz, and Josh Mateo.

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007

Learned perspective while drawing NYC’skyscrapers from Spider-Man movies at 8

The New York City landscape was ideal for learning how to draw realistic lines while imagining new stories for this superhero.

As these skyscrapers tend to be very repetitive, I often only draw the last five floors and use the remaining space of my A4 sheet for a pose of Spider-Man.

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008

Learned to draw while reproducing 151 first Pokémons

When I was a kid, around 7 or 8 years old, and I got my first cartridge of Pokémon Yellow with my best friend Pikachu, my father taught me how to draw. I remember to hang each new design on the kitchen wall and plan our next drawing session.

Discovering and learning each evolution stage of these adorable monsters was one of my first obsessions, like many other kids for sure.

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Yann-Edern Gillet

Software Designer, Linear
Framer Awards Site of the Year 2022

Thunderstorm

© 2024 Yann-Edern Gillet

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Updates, inspirations and thoughts.

Subscribe to my newsletter

Subscribe

Yann-Edern Gillet

Software Designer, Linear
Framer Awards Site of the Year 2022

© 2024 Yann-Edern Gillet

Updates, inspirations and thoughts.

Subscribe to my newsletter

Subscribe

Yann-Edern Gillet

Software Designer, Linear
Framer Awards Site of the Year 2022

Thunderstorm

© 2024 Yann-Edern Gillet

·