The Women of Tuts+ Web Design

Here’s a fun fact: for no particular reason we have more men than women on our instructor team at Tuts+ Web Design, yet our top three tutorials so far in 2015 were all written by women. This post will quickly introduce you to our regular women contributors and give you a couple of names to look out for in the near future!

A Quick Word on Culture

At Envato we pride ourselves on our values, all of which we keep in mind with everything we do. Encouraging diversity and being inclusive play a big part in this, so it’s important I make the following clear to you all: Tuts+ is open to new instructors, men and women, from anywhere in the world!

This article is about making sure that everyone is aware of the open and “fair go” culture we enjoy at Envato. If you’re interested, find out more by reading Teach at Tuts+.

Kezz Bracey

Kezz belongs at the top of this list because, without exaggeration, she’s written and recorded gazillions of tons of top-quality material for Tuts+! To date Kezz has published 51 tutorials, recorded 8 courses, and gathered a very loyal fanbase in the process.

She first demonstrated her ability as a Tuts+ instructor back in October 2013 when she wrote the series Building a Ghost Theme From Scratch. From there she convinced us all to try Stylus, have a go at Jade, all the while writing a wide range of tutorials on whatever took her fancy at the time. Here are some of Kezz’s tutorials and courses which I recommend you check out:

The Command Line for Web Design beginner’s tutorial series
The State of Responsive Web Design article
Bombproof Web Design course
10 CSS3 Projects: UI and Layout course

Nicole Merlin

Nicole (Australian, like Kezz funnily enough) lives, eats, breathes and performs magic on email. Those top three tutorials I mentioned earlier? Two of them belong to Nicole. Build an HTML Email Template From Scratch and Creating a Simple Responsive HTML Email have dug themselves in so firmly as go-to reading for budding email developers, I don’t think they’ll be moving from the top spots anytime soon!

Earlier this month Nicole returned with an equally brilliant tutorial Creating a Future-Proof Responsive Email Without Media Queries and I’m really looking forward to see what else she cooks up for us in the future.

Kendra Schaefer

Kendra is not from Australia. She’s American, but lives in China. I reached out to her at the end of 2014 after reading a blog post she wrote on Chinese Standard Web Fonts, asking if she had any insights on web design in China. Seven killer articles later, it’s clear she does!

Her first Tuts+ post Notes From Behind the Firewall: The State of Web Design in China kicked up such a fuss, it led to us commissioning “Global Influence” articles on all topics across Tuts+ (if you haven’t read it, go and do so right now).

I can honestly say my perception of the web has changed enormously, for the better, since Kendra joined the team. More highly recommended articles, all soaked in her unique brand of humour, include:

Joni Trythall

If you don’t yet know Joni, you probably haven’t taken an interest in SVG, because otherwise you would certainly have come across her rather brilliant Pocket Guide to Writing SVG! You might also know her if you hang around CodePen, or from her teaching with Girl Develop It.

Her combination of teaching style and illustration talents made her the perfect choice for our recent Web Design for Kids series. She’s filled it with easy to follow instructions, for kids and grown-ups alike, along with lovely illustrations (SVG, naturally).

Classic Joni illustration

There are still plenty more tutorials to come in Joni’s series, but if you haven’t checked them out yet begin by reading Web Design for Kids: Welcome to Tuts+ Town!

Blast From the Past: Winnie Lim

Winnie hasn’t actually written for Tuts+ for a while, but I’d be remiss in not mentioning her. Winnie’s tutorial A Beginner’s Guide to Wireframing (from three years ago!) remains one of our most visited pages to date. It has that perfect synthesis of simple explanation and actionable results. Thanks Winnie!

Back to the Future

In the next couple of months I’ll be working on courses with some very exciting web designers, two of whom I feel I should introduce right now:

Drew Lepp

I’m really looking forward to Drew’s colourful personality shining in some short courses on UX. Her charisma on camera (take a look at this) tells me that we can expect awesomeness! No pressure Drew..

Yesenia Perez-Cruz

Yesenia is a familiar name on the conference circuit and you’ll know her if you’ve ever paid attention to Happy Cog, or the .net awards, or lipstick. She scouts talent for ALA and recently started at @voxmediainc as senior designer. And she’s still finding the energy to record a course for Tuts+ on web typography. Huzzah!

Thanks

I’d just like to say a quick word of thanks to all our women instructors; past, present and future. If you’re a budding web design instructor and find yourself inspired by what you’ve seen here, please let us know!