two years agoLeaving Clearleft, going freelance, travelling the world

There is just under a week to go before I bid farewell to Clearleft on the 10th March. I have had a very happy and productive two and a half years working here, though it doesn't feel like it has been that long since I started.

Team photo from a while back

Naturally I am sad to go, it has been great fun working and being part of a team of talented people. I've learned a lot and been very lucky to have had the opportunity to work on some pretty cool projects over the years, including WWF's panda.org, the Mozilla Addon's site and so many more.

I feel I have done some very good work during my time here, both for individual project builds, giving talks and workshops on CSS and CSS3, generally helping out with events such as dConstruct and Uxlondon. Also in introducing a systematic approach to web development—writing componentised maintainable CSS and HTML—which we now use for all of our projects.

It is always sad to leave: I really will miss my fellow Clearlefties. We have had lots of fun memories, many team outings, conferences, fridays at the pub, epic adventures at SXSW, in depth debates & discussions, general office banter, dressing up daft for Halloween etc. They have become more than just colleagues, they are good friends.

Me with little horns

Andy orders us Tequila at SXSW at the Great British Booze up

Me and Jeremy at Halloween

There are some exciting times for me on the horizon though, in addition to running the Brighton Marathon, working on some personal projects and getting married on June 5th to the lovely Simon Willison, I am also making myself available for freelance work. If you have any HTML / CSS / Javascript projects or need emergency cross browser CSS help—I'm your girl, feel free to drop me a line.

…and if that wasn't enough announcements for you: Simon and I will also be leaving England's green and pleasant land in mid June for an elongated honeymoon travelling the world in search of adventure, interesting food and funny animals. We will also be working as we go round. We don't have any fixed route or return date, but you can be sure there will follow a site that lets you track what we are up to as we journey through foreign lands :)

Hugging a llama

Posted at 10:35 am on the 5th of March 2010. 1715 Comments

1715 comments

  1. Congratulations Natalie. I was at the CSS3 workshop in January. So yet another well-known front-end developer goes freelance; "they're dropping like flies!"

    Enjoy your wedding, honeymoon and being self-employed, best of luck!

    Tjobbe ~Andrews 5th March 2010 11:02permalink.

  2. Congratulations and good luck for the future! It sounds very exciting. :)

    Steve Worsley 5th March 2010 11:05permalink.

  3. Good luck Natalie, and have a fantastic time on your travels :)

    Andy 5th March 2010 11:09permalink.

  4. Exciting times. Good luck Nat!

    Pete 5th March 2010 11:17permalink.

  5. How exciting! I'm sure you've already cooked something up, but looking forward to seeing your travel itenerary (or not, since it'll no doubt be envy inducing).

    Frances 5th March 2010 11:20permalink.

  6. Natalie, you'll be greatly missed in the office - there have been some really fun times! Good luck on your world travels (try not to break yourself often!).

    Paul Annett 5th March 2010 11:38permalink.

  7. good luck nat - hope you have more fun than you can shake a stick at :)

    cath 5th March 2010 11:57permalink.

  8. Hi Nat,

    Best of luck to you and Simon with your new adventures, and thanks for being a welcoming, friendly face whenever I've made the trip down to Brighton.

    Cheers,

    Tim

    Tim Beadle 5th March 2010 12:21permalink.

  9. Wow. A tough day for Clearleft, but very exciting for you. I hope you enjoy your time traveling and freelancing. Looking forward to hearing about what you work on next.

    Good luck!

    Phil Hawksworth 5th March 2010 13:04permalink.

  10. That is so exciting and I am very my in envy of you and Simon. The bit that got me the most was...

    We don't have any fixed route or return date

    Now that is the kind of trip I approve of! Good luck to you both.

    Paul Boag 5th March 2010 14:54permalink.

  11. Congratulations Nat, and have a pleasant voyage, wherever it takes you :)

    Tom Coady 5th March 2010 16:26permalink.

  12. Will you two be going to SXSW?

    Jeremy Dunck 5th March 2010 16:29permalink.

  13. Good luck, guys – have fun on your adventure :) Gonna miss having you in Brighton!

    Aral Balkan 8th March 2010 12:43permalink.

  14. Thanks for the warm wishes everyone! I am very excited :)

    @ Jeremy Dunk: no unfortunately what with the wedding and travel we decided not to go to SXSW this year. Saving our pennies!

    Natalie 8th March 2010 13:58permalink.

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