Working with design systems
Design systems as a field have matured over the past few years. Now you can find hundreds of examples of them, as well as fantastic resources, communities & new tools. I have been working as Design System Lead at Ruter for a few years now, and I’m proud of how our design system has become a truly collaborative cross team effort. I thought it was about time that I shared a few tips, tools and essentials to help others getting started.
Design systems as a field have matured over the past few years. Now you can find hundreds of examples of them, as well as fantastic resources, communities & new tools. I have been working as Design System Lead at Ruter for a few years now, and I’m proud of how our design system has become a truly collaborative cross team effort. I thought it was about time that I shared a few tips, tools and essentials to help others getting started.
Whilst there is no one size fits all solution, there are some elements I consider to be essential to a well functioning system. I really believe that a design system should start with company values, guiding how we approach our work as well as directing how our system should be structured. Secondly, clearly defined design principles will help create resources, and enable those using the system to work confidently and autonomously straight away. I also believe that a design systems governance and contribution model should be in place from the beginning which explains how the team is organised, and invites feedback and collaboration.
A culture of collaboration
I believe design systems should be about empowerment rather than enforcement. A centralised system might seem inviting as decisions can be made quickly and without compromise. Components could be built that one might assume essential, and they could look impressive, but they might not fit with the product or the way the team work. This can lead to a design system which is removed from the product teams and customer needs. A system should have some degree of rigidness to it, but a product focused design system works when it is a reflection of the whole team.
““If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”.”
I believe that design system teams should have a small core team doing most of the work, simultaneously facilitating others to contribute when needed and appropriate. I think this hybrid model reduces the bottle neck from the central team with work coming into the design system from other teams, and is the key to creating a design system that is actually used.
Instead of working autonomously, design system teams spend a lot of time working with all the product teams. This can be a challenge, but if collaboration is baked into company culture through sharing expertise, insights, alignment of goals, and processes, it can be a lot easier and very rewarding.
Working with the design team at Ruter on our icon library
In my role as design system lead at Ruter I feel as though I help the design team work much more collaboratively. For example, we have a design review meeting each week in which we look at different parts of the design system and discuss changes, new additions and give feedback. Designers often comment that they looked forward to our weekly sessions, and come away from them feeling inspired and informed. As well as this I organise design sprints, workshops, conduct research and invite other non designers into our space to work with us too.
Collaborative touch points
Make sure that there are multiple channels to give feedback and collaborate. As well as regular design reviews, it’s good to have a dedicated #designsystem slack channel, and really get the most of using Figma features such as comments and branching. Try to encourage designers and developers to work openly on shared team files rather than alone in private spaces.
Recently Figma has introduced branching. Branches are exploratory spaces that enable designers to safely try new ideas without making changes to the main, or existing, file. Rather than auto-saving to the main file, changes from branches are merged into the main file when you're ready.
Contribution model
Contributions to the design system should be useful and unique. A suggested component or pattern should be useful for many teams or services and it should not replicate something already in the Design System. It’s a good idea to explain this contribution model in your docs and slack channel so that users understand how and when to contribute.
Being a design system lead can sometimes mean saying no, but not without a discussion around that decision and an explanation why. Sometimes a new component is suggested, but there are a few alternative components already in the system that would work for that use case. Sometimes more research is needed to support changes in the system, and sometimes the answer is not ‘no’, but ‘not now’ as it doesn’t align with the current goals.
If you have a lot of stakeholders and users, it could be a good idea to use a feature request tracking tool such as Frill, Savio or Prodcamp to help prioritise, collaborate with users and share what is being worked on.
Measuring success
How is success measured in design systems? The first thing designers usually point to here is figma analytics, but just having and presenting data about component inserts isn’t enough. The trick is to figure out how to interpret and analyse that data according to the design system goals alongside other more qualitative insights. It’s important to share how the design system is performing, and present any analysis of metrics in a simple and easy to understand way.
Design system goals should be aligned with other team and organisation goals. Including the goals in the design system docs helps users understand the team and the system.
Start with documentation
The first thing to do is start documenting decisions, and making a plan for organising what you have so far. There’s no wrong place to start doing this, whether it’s Google docs, notion or directly in Figma, sharing design decisions from the beginning builds trust and understanding across the company. Instead of aiming for perfection, aim for appropriateness of needs.
In-line docs
Most design systems start as a small component library in Figma. This is a simple starting point for documenting design decisions and will give design system users enough context to feel confident using the system.
Dedicated docs file
When libraries get bigger, it could be time to move towards a dedicated docs file, this is easier to organise and will help lessen the bloat of the main asset library. It’s still easy to link to the right docs from each component. There has recently been a lot of updates and plugins made available which allow for clearer and better documentation, internationalisation of design systems, accessibility checks and automation, making Figma quite a good option for most design system documentation.
CMS
When working in an organisation with many teams and products it could make sense to eventually move towards having an open CMS that can be indexed. It’s needed when a design system is widely used not just by digital designers, but also by product managers, developers, marketing teams and other key stakeholders.
Most CMS systems have their own Figma plugins that sync with libraries and documentation. This helps automate processes and syncs tools seamlessly. Storybook is a fantastic open source tool for building UI components and pages in isolation. It streamlines UI development, testing, and documentation. Storybook code snippets can be integrated into CMS solutions, bringing design and development even closer together.
Custom
Fully custom solutions are high effort, and not really appropriate until a design system has more of an ecosystem around it. Stripe is a good example of this, as they have 3rd party developers creating stuff from their design system. It is a complex solution, and often not needed but important to consider as a product develops.
Describing components
Documentation should always start with foundational style guidance around colour, typography and other patterns that flow through the whole design, detailing also how the values and design principles work with the profile. These core elements of the design system (or atoms if you are familiar with the concept of atomic design) can be used to create design tokens which are then used to develop components. The design system should have a defined naming structure to guide the way every component is built up. Naming is a notoriously difficult thing to do and is debated passionately in the design system community, but alignment on how elements are described increases understanding and breaks down silos.
Examples and variations should be incorporated into component usage guidelines. I find that do’s and dont’s are helpful in quickly exemplifying component use, as well as referring back to the foundational style guidance and patterns. Accessibility features or considerations such as what happens with keyboard navigation, tab orders, or how the components work with screen readers should be incorporated into examples and documentation for components rather than in a separate accessibility section. This keeps accessibility top of mind instead of an afterthought.
Resources
There are so many great examples of design systems. Some of my favourite public ones are Atlassian, Polaris (Shopify), Carbon (IBM), Adobe spectrum, Orbit, Workday Canvas System, and Stripe Docs. You can watch a video of me talking more about Ruters design system here, and designsystems.com is a fantastic resource for articles and templates.
Ruter app wins gold at the European Design Awards
The European Design Awards, also known as the ED-Awards, celebrate European designers for the best work in the field of communication design.
This weekend the Ruter app was awarded gold in the European Design Awards in the Mobile Apps category. Receiving such an award feels so great, and I’m so thankful to my dedicated and skilled teammates who dare to explore, and constantly test services with our customers. We continue improvements on our app, in our quest to make travelling in Oslo more sustainable and accessible.
The European Design Awards, also known as the ED-Awards, celebrate European designers for the best work in the field of communication design. Supported by the International Council of Design, the ED-Awards are a little different to many other design awards, as the jury is not made up of designers, but of design journalists and critics - whose daily job is to evaluate design work.
Ruter wins gold at Visuelt
Visuelt is an annual competition in visual communication, highlights the best of work in graphic design, illustration, digital design and moving image and aims to inspire new thinking and high professional standards.
We are so proud to have won another award for our work on the Ruter app. This is what the Visuelt jury had to say:
Ruter's transformation into combined mobility – means that cycling, walking and new means of transport become options in the app. Ruter challenges conventions and makes brave choices. The solution reflects a strong and growing identity while ensuring readability and accessibility. The details are in place right down to the in-house developed font. The solution is built for the future, and we look forward to following the journey further!
Visuelt is an annual competition in visual communication, highlights the best of work in graphic design, illustration, digital design and moving image and aims to inspire new thinking and high professional standards. Read more about Visuelt here.
We won the DOGA award!
Every year, DOGA Norway honours the best design and architecture in Norway. Our team at Ruter were totally thrilled to receive this years award. Together with Bakken & Bæck and NoA Ignite, we’ve have been working on a new digital visual universe and a completely new mobility app designed to help millions of travellers on a daily basis.
Every year, DOGA Norway honours the best design and architecture in Norway. Our team at Ruter were totally thrilled to receive this years award. Together with Bakken & Bæck and NoA Ignite, we’ve have been working on a new digital visual universe and a completely new mobility app designed to help millions of travellers on a daily basis.
This is what the DOGA jury has to say:
“The app is clearly the result of good design management, resulting in a friendly and warm product. Underneath the surface, however, hides the intricate coding that manages to capture the whole of Ruter’s complex services in an intuitive and attractive interface.
We are also charmed by how the app gently nudges the user into choosing to walk or bicycle, and we want to applaud Ruter for thinking holistically around seamless mobility on the traveler’s terms.
Ruter’s new travel app is awarded the DOGA award for design and architecture as a long-awaited service that is skilfully designed and executed down to the last detail.”
The new app!
Every day over a million people in the greater Oslo area interact with Ruter through their apps, website, and countless transit points. Travellers demand greater convenience, speed, and freedom while expecting every product to be simple, seamless, and frictionless. Our ambition is to connect people to the city by offering a personalised experience across a digital platform so that we can provide freedom of mobility to everyone.
Building a new app from scratch, we wanted to combine previously separate features like route planning and ticketing while at the same time creating a new design system that can scale future unknowns and new means of transportation. We also experimented with features to incentivise walking and biking.
The app is simple to use and designed with special attention to accessibility and inclusion for its many, and diverse users. Thousands of travellers have already tested the new Ruter app, and we can’t wait to share it with all of you in 2021.
Illustrating with Procreate
Illustration has helped me through the pandemic. I love working in procreate on my iPad in the evenings. You can see more of my illustration work here.
Illustration has helped me through the pandemic. I love working in procreate on my iPad in the evenings. You can see more of my illustration work here.
Allergy friendly porridge fingers
If you are the parent of a child with milk or egg allergies or if your family follow a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle these bars are perfect, they’re packed full of nutrient rich ingredients and can be customised according to preference.
Since my son, Fred, was 6 months old we have been making weekly batches of oaty porridge bars. They’re really healthy, economic, save time, are good on the go and he loves them! We usually have some in fridge as back up food for fussy or hectic days. We like to make a big batch and then pop most of them into little bags in the freezer so they last quite a while!
If you are the parent of a child with milk or egg allergies or if your family follow a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle these bars are perfect, they’re packed full of nutrient rich ingredients and can be customised according to preference, we like to add vitamin c rich dried apricots to ours as it’s a great way to get more iron into Fred’s diet. We have even made savoury versions with beetroot and spinach in them.
This recipe was adapted from a recipe I found in the Baby-led Weaning Cookbook to make it egg and dairy free.
Allergy friendly porridge fingers
15 mins prep, 35 minutes baking, makes 20 bars.
Ingredients
2 bananas
3 tbsp flax seed
630ml milk of your choice (we like soy)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
300g porridge oats
100g plain flour
200g chopped up mixed died fruit such as apricots, raisins, or cranberries.
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a large baking tray with non stick paper. We use this ikea one which is 34x24 cm.
Put the flax seed into a large mixing bowl and mix with 3 tbsp boiling water, add the banana, and the milk and mash it up together. I actually like to use a handblender here to get a nice smooth consistency.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix it all together.
Transfer to the prepared tray and and bake for 25-35 minutes until fairly firm and lightly browned.
Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool down before cutting. Cut into fingers and serve cold.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Everyone loves cookies, and these ones really are a treat.
Everyone loves cookies, and these ones really are a treat.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
20 minutes prep, 12 minutes baking, makes 12 cookies
Wet ingredients
100g dark brown sugar
50g white sugar
120g vegetable oil
50ml milk
1 tbsp tapioca flour
1 tbsp vanilla essence
Dry ingredients
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tbsp salt
vegan choc chips
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Get two oven trays out and line them with baking paper.
Put all the wet ingredients into a small bowl and whizz it together with an electric whisk until its nice and smooth.
In a bigger bowl mix your dry ingredients together. Mix the wet with the dry.
Spoon dollops of mixture into your hand and roll them into a ball. Place 6 balls on each baking tray evenly spaced out in a grid. Squish the balls down a little with your fist.
Bake them in the oven for about 12 minutes.
Let them cool for at least 10 minutes (if you can bear it) before you gobble them down!
Building on Material icons
Everyone who works with me knows I’m a massive fan of Google’s Material design icons. I designed place category icons for a map to match the Material design style.
Everyone who works with me knows I’m a massive fan of Googles Material Design icons. They’re beautifully designed and easily recognisable. They’re also available in a range of themes, weights and best of all, they’re open source!
I started to use them in the Vegan Norway app for various parts of the UI, that was back when all the places on the map were simply marked with hot pink pins. After some testing and user feedback, we saw it would be useful if the users could see what types of places were shown on the map. And so I began the mammoth process of going through the hundreds of places in the app and categorising them. Yep, it was time to bring out the post it notes.
From the book Principles of Map Design by Judith Tyner in which she discusses the visual variables of cartographic symbols.
I didn’t want to have too many categories so I grouped relevant ones together. I showed my category types to our focus group and asked them for input, and I checked out how other map services and travel guides categorise restaurants so I could compare our category mapping.
Once we had decided upon categories it was time for Christian to put them into the system and start testing whilst I started designing icons. I knew that I wanted to use Google Material icons as a starting point but that their icons wouldn’t cover the quite specific categories we had, so I had to design new ones in the same style.
I began by scouring the icon pack and seeing if I could find existing icons that did match up. The local_cafe and fastfood icons were perfect for my needs. Once I had done this, I began sketching out ideas for what the other icons could be, keeping in mind the line thickness, simplicity and style of material icons.
When I had a few ideas I tested them by showing them to the focus group and asking them what they thought the icons might represent. It was quite hard to make icons that were easily recognisable, someone thought my icon idea for sushi restaurant was a pair of glasses! I went back to the drawing board quite a few times to get it right.
When we were finally happy with our new icon set we put it in the app and tested it again on the beta group. It was a success! This project was a challenge, but I really enjoyed coming up with new icons that match the beautiful Material design icon set.
The sushi icon was the hardest one to do. It had to be immediately recognisable but also work well as a tiny icon so it couldn’t have too much detail.
Strim
For the past few months my team have been developing and designing a brand new streaming service across browser, tvOS, iOS and Android. It has been a fun project in which we have achieved a lot. A big part of that was making everyone part of the design process. Here is how we did it…
The past few months have been a bit of a blur. In the midst of getting pregnant and moving house, it’s also been an exciting time at my job. I work as UX Lead at RiksTV and a while ago we started making plans to launch a brand new streaming service in Norway. We felt like it was time for a product which bridged the gap between Netflix style streaming platforms and more traditional cable TV providers. We believe people should be able to sign up and start streaming without being locked into a contract, having to pay annoying set up fees or connect extra equipment from what they already have, and that it would be great if they could also enjoy content across live cable tv channels in the same place that they watch their favourite on demand series.
The lean Strim team
Together with some colleagues from RiksTV we have been working with consultants from Bekk, Novanet, and Itera. Our team has consisted of mostly developers, but also designers, branding experts, project managers, and marketers. My role in the project was to design the user experience. We have worked as agile as possible, with focus meetings each week in which we discussed and prioritised tasks so that we could constantly release, test and evaluate. This helped us focus as a team, iterating over features quickly and productively. Building a product from scratch gave us a lot of freedom. We moved really fast, broke everything, learned a lot, fixed stuff, and nobody got hurt because we didn’t have any paying users yet.
We used Trello as our planning tool, with the classic ‘to do’, ‘doing’ and ‘done’ lists, however we incorporated some ‘lean extras’ into the mix too. We split the to do list into two: backlog and current focus, and added a list for things that were in test. The current focus list was basically a prioritised backlog of things to be done that week. We started every Monday with a focus meeting in which we archived all cards from the ‘done’ list and discussed what we should do next. We also had daily stand ups so that we could quickly sniff out if anything was holding us back, and get a good overview of what tasks we each were working on. Our customised approach to lean project management worked well for us, and we tweaked it as we progressed, adding work in progress limits to the columns and occasional retros and other lean ceremonies as we needed them.
If you are reading this and wondering what the hell I am talking about you can read about lean methodology here.
Designing a TV experience together
Designing Strim was interesting. We decided to start with a browser player as our first product. We wanted to get a first version of the product out fast so we decided to duplicate elements from our existing RiksTV browser player as a starting point, adding a sign up process and a landing page. There were two other designers here for a while working on branding concepts whilst we started on all the technical tasks. We did a lot of workshops and research to figure out how the brand should be and ended up with an exciting and modern visual profile.
I worked with the team, making paper wireframes to map out ideas for a sign up flow, and used Sketch integrated with Zeplin (which was then Integrated with Slack) so that the whole team could collaborate and discuss design work constantly, I find these tools help the team immensely. It is important that everyone is part of the design process.
Device reach
It wasn’t long before summer was upon us, and we knew that we couldn’t really launch a streaming service you can only use on your computer. Everyone else on my team was heading off on holiday but there were a few of us around and so we began a summer project to make a Strim Android app.
We used Facebooks own framework for building native apps: React Native and I used Google’s new Material Theming guidelines to quickly put it together. I have to say that I found it so satisfying to work with Material, and that the Material Theming plugin for sketch is a LOT of fun. If you are an app designer and you haven’t tried it yet you can get it here.
The rest of the team came back from their holiday and were surprised to see how far we had got with the app. In only a few weeks we had included most of the functionality, and content we had in the browser app, and it looked slick too.
Since then I have also designed a Strim iOS app and a tvOS app. It has been a challenge to juggle designing for 4 different platforms at the same time, but I seem to have managed because really the whole team has been designing the user experience with me. That’s partly thanks to our project management and design tools, but also because I’ve been working with people who are not afraid of getting creative and involved in all parts of the project.
The future of Strim
Last week we launched Strim, and it was very well received by our partners HBO Nordic, TV2, Paramount, Discovery, and Disney, as well as other key players in the media world. We also have our first proper paying users, and are enjoying great feedback. It’s an exciting time for us, as we see so much opportunity to develop Strim’s features, include more content and expand the team too!
My nice French boss Jérôme (bottom left) and some hot shot TV people at our launch party.
I probably can’t say what is next for Strim, but I can say that I’m having fun designing it! We are offering people a 7 day trial period, which is good to know if you are curious about trying it out. If you do please let us know what you think about it, if there are any features you miss and your thoughts on what the future of TV looks like.
Oslo
Since I moved to Oslo I have lived in 9 different places, taken care of 5 cats, had one operation, been to 3 funerals, 3 weddings, and fallen deeply in love. There are so many special places here, that I have come back to over and over again. Places that might not make it onto a usual tourist blog, but personally make me feel so much love for this city.
I moved here 8 years ago with a guy I'd only been dating for a few months. I didn't know much about Norway but I was fresh out of University, and desperate for a new start. We packed a suitcase, said goodbye to our family and took a flight over the north sea.
The first few weeks were fun, but I must admit that I was taken aback by how expensive everything was. I wondered if I would have enough money to last me until I found a job. I went out into the city and tried to make friends and see if I could find some bar work, it was harder than I thought it would be. The people in Oslo felt rather unwelcoming. Nobody seemed to talk to each other, avoided eye contact with strangers, people stood as far away from each other as possible when waiting for the bus. I missed the Manchester warmth, I missed people calling me 'love' and 'our kid', I missed my mum, my friends, and the local chippy.
After a while things started to fall into place and I started to feel at home. I made friends and explored the city with them. I learned how to speak Norwegian and how to make a good Norwegian christmas dinner. I did all the tourist stuff like tobogganing on Korketrekkeren, and posing with the statues in Vigeland Park.
Since I moved to Oslo I have lived in 9 different places, taken care of 5 cats, had one operation, been to 3 funerals, 3 weddings, and fallen deeply in love. There are so many special places here, that I have come back to over and over again. Places that might not make it onto a usual tourist blog, but personally make me feel so much love for this city.
'This room is an acoustic sculpture'
Maybe my favourite place in Oslo is Nasjonalteatret Station. If you enter the station through the west entrance (at the back of the castle, opposite the old American embassy) you will find yourself in a round room immediately noticing the echo from your footsteps changing sound as you walk further into the room. I remember the day I first came across this place, how beautiful I found the fluttering echos of the room to be. I remember waiting until there was nobody around and and then bursting into song so I could hear how my voice was distorted differently depending on where I stood in the room. It sounded amazing.
The 'echo chamber' was designed by the architect Arne Eggen. He knew there would be a flutter echo when he built it, but he never expected it to be so strong. Initially the railway company didn’t like the effect and threatened to sue the architect. However, it quickly became loved by musicians and tourists and they dropped the case. Now this beautiful acoustic sculpture has won prizes and been written about all over the world.
The sensory garden
There are so many cool things in Oslo's Botanical Gardens. It's a very pretty place, a popular spot with tourists and locals alike. The gardens are split up into different sections, they have a rock garden, greenhouses, a herb garden, and an arboretum. My favourite part is the sensory garden, or 'great granny's garden' as it is often called which is right in the middle of the park. The plants here are collected from old gardens. Many of them are no longer commercially available, but are preserved here in a living archive. The project was started in 2008 by the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre, who have been responsible for the registration and collecting of ornamentals in Southeast-Norway and have a special responsibility for the conservation of peonies.
A sensory garden stimulates many senses, evokes pleasant emotions, brings out long-forgotten memories, and stimulates communication. Sensory gardens are therefore considered an important tool in the therapy of dementia. I think it's wonderful that everyone can go here and see these rare old breeds of beautiful flowers that also help people hold onto valuable memories.
Stolpersteine
Walking down Calmeyers Gate in Oslo the simple brass plaques embedded in the pavement are easy to miss. I had walked by them many times without looking to see what they were, until one day I read one of them:
“Here lived Bernhard Leimann
Born 1897
Deported 1942
Auschwitz
Murdered January 1943.”
Leimann was married and had a five-year-old daughter, Valli. On October 26th, he was part of a consignment of men over the age of 15 who were arrested by the Norwegian Nazi Party. One month later, Leimann was deported to Auschwitz.
Of the 532 Jews who boarded the German cargo ship SS Donau in Oslo on November 26th 1942, only nine survived the war. There were 302 men, 188 women and 42 children on board. All told, 772 Jews were deported from Norway in four voyages during the second World War – only 34 came back.
The German artist Gunter Demnig began the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) project in the early 1990s in Berlin and the cultural initiative has now spread to several countries. In their sheer simplicity, the stones trigger a response by connecting the “here lived” with the living while at the same time emphasising the evils of totalitarianism. Since I saw that first one on Calmeyers Gate I have seen them all over Oslo. The symbolism of the stones serve as a stark social reminder of the lives lost in the Holocaust. I'm glad they are there.
Oslo's local stores
It is so nice to support local businesses, especially ones that have been around for ages. My favourites are Bislett Blomster who have been in business for 40 years selling the most beautiful bouquets and plants, Skafferiet in Frogner, another family business where you can get the best avocados in Oslo. I also love Gutta på Haugen, which is a great place for specialist groceries like fancy hot sauce and luxury chocolate.
When it comes to coffee, we like to head to Tim Wendleboe, Java, and Fuglen. You can't beat coffee in Oslo, it really is the best.
Life, Death, & Sex
One of the most extraordinary and amazing places in Oslo is Tomba Emmanuelle or as it is more commonly known: Emanuel Vigelands Museum. It doesn't really look like anything particularly special from the outside, but once you step into this dark barrel-vaulted room, your eyes will slowly adjust and reveal to you that the entire place is covered in fresco paintings. Naked, dramatic, erotic figures tell the story of human life from conception till death. Lovemaking and procreation in the honour of God takes place in front of a dark and infinite universe, dimly lit by the life-giving, divine sun but also by the blazing fires of hell. It is really quite amazing to experience this place, and the acoustics are as dramatic as the visuals. One of my best memories is attending a concert here by the Norwegian band Supersilent. They play improvised avant-garde experimental music and it was so perfect to listen to it in that setting.
Food Against Fascism
For the past few weeks I've been planning, baking, and buying ingredients. I'm getting ready to do a pop up cookie cafe at Oslo Vegetarfestival and let me tell you, I am SO happy to be back in the kitchen doing what I love.
I started my baking project: Sally's Cookies last year as a fun way to do something which helps people. The point of the project is to donate the profits away to organisations which make the world a better place. Every time I sell a cookie, someone gets to eat something delicious, and they also get a good feeling from knowing that they have donated to an important cause. I see it as a non confrontational form of activism. it's a good way to inspire people and spread awareness.
As I'm getting ready to do it all again, I thought it might be cool to look back at my first event in July last year in which I raised money for an LGBTQ rights organisation; Skeiv Ungdom.
For the past few weeks I've been planning, baking, and buying ingredients. I'm getting ready to do a pop up cookie cafe at Oslo Vegetarfestival and let me tell you, I am SO happy to be back in the kitchen doing what I love.
I started my baking project: Sally's Cookies last year as a fun way to do something which helps people. The point of the project is to donate the profits away to organisations which make the world a better place. Every time I sell a cookie, someone gets to eat something delicious, and they also get a good feeling from knowing that they have donated to an important cause. I see it as a non confrontational form of activism. it's a good way to inspire people and spread awareness.
As I'm getting ready to do it all again, I thought it might be cool to look back at my first event in July last year in which I raised money for an LGBTQ rights organisation; Skeiv Ungdom.
Bakes Against Hate
I was sitting in a coffee shop in Oslo one morning with my boyfriend, Nick. I had just read an article in Aftenposten about a group of neo nazis that were organising a march in Fredrikstad against what they call 'the homolobby'. The Norwegian police had given them permission to march in the city because of rules around 'free speech'. I thought about the negative impact this march will have and I was so upset.
Whilst I'm not gay myself, I'm very close to the LGBTQ community. When I was a teenager one of my friends had a very difficult experience coming out. They were afraid to be themselves, they were afraid of how they would be treated by their own family, friends and colleagues. They struggled with fear and shame for years and the trauma and bullying they experienced sadly seems to have had a lasting effect on their life. I often think of this old friend and of all the young people today who are afraid to be open about their sexuality. I think of everyone who has ever had the word 'faggot' or 'dyke' sneered at them. I think of all of the people who are scared to hold hands or kiss their partners in the street, and everyone who stays quiet about their marriage or relationship at work.
There is simply no excuse for homophobia or transphobia. It's completely unfair that LGBT people are made to experience such hate and discrimination and it's up to all of us to show them that we stand with them and that they are supported in their choice to love who they love, and be who they are.
I put my coffee down and told Nick 'I'm gonna do the opposite of what these Nazis are doing.' That was when the idea for Sally's Cookies was born. I decided that I was going to do a pop up cookie cafe and donate my profits to Skeiv Ungdom, one of the biggest LGBTQ rights organisations in Norway.
Kompass & Co
I then had a to do list as long as my arm! I made branding ideas, and sketched out my concept. I started thinking of recipes and buying equipment. I registered my website and set up Sally's Cookies as a not for profit organisation. I started to think about who I wanted to work with and then I met Sherry from Kompass & Co, a social organisation which organises environmentally focused projects to help get young people into work. They do everything from growing green rooms and roof gardens to street food and catering. We share their ethos that the most important thing we can do is help each other. I reached out to Sherry and we were both really excited about the project. I got to work with some amazing young people at Kompass & Co, I showed them my cookie recipe and we got to work baking together.
Countdown to the event
We did a little launch party and invited a bunch of friends to taste the cookies and hear about the project. We had a couple of sessions in a big kitchen in Skøyen, and we baked loads of cookies for the Pride parade. We made some batches of dough that went wrong and some that went oh so right! I was baking, and buying paper plates, and advertising the event on social media, and painting signs. It was a lot of work! Luckily I had a team of fantastic people who were by my side. Sherry was a rock, so calm and experienced, she knew exactly how to do this sort of thing and had loads of advice. Nick was there to help me with everything: baking, shopping, testing cookies (I think that was his fave way to help) and together with my friend Marte they helped me set up Sally's Cookies as a business. I had also organised the fantastic Tom Kuyken from Java to come by and make coffee, my friend Tine Katrine said she would do photography, and my friend Øystein had volunteered to DJ! On top of all that my colleagues at RiksTV and Knowit were all super supportive, sharing the event everywhere and inviting all of their friends. I could not have done the event without all of their help.
22 July
Finally the day was here. Sherry pulled up at my house in her cool food truck and we loaded up the van with boxes of cookies, decorations and supplies. We got to Youngstorget and started setting up. The youth from Kompass & Co showed up, and along with Nick, Sherry and my friend Christian, it didn't take long for us to decorate the cutest little food truck you have ever seen. People had started to form a long queue going right round Youngstorget, as Tom came with his coffee and Øystein got the party started with some music. I was pumping full of adrenaline. It was time to get this cookie cafe going!
The truck was open from 11am until 6pm. There were people buying cookies all day and we completely sold out, selling our last cookie at 5.50pm: perfect timing. Throughout the day I met some really awesome people. Some people came because they knew the Vegan Norway app and they wanted to say hello, chat about app stuff and eat some vegan cookies. Other people came because they were walking by and saw the truck and thought the project sounded really cool. Some people came to dance to the funky tunes, and some people came by to show support for the LGBTQ community. I was so happy to meet them and chat to them about their experiences and hear their thoughts on the planned neo nazi march.
Despite the fact that we were there to stick it to the nazis, there was no 'angry activist' kind of vibe at our food truck at all. The sun was shining, we were eating cookies, listening to music, and just having fun. Tine Katrine came by and took some lovely photos of the day, you can see all of them over on the Sally's Cookies facebook page.
At 6pm, we started packing up for the day. We washed every little crumb out of the van, cleared away our glittery signs, gave each other a hug, and said goodbye. I went home and collapsed on the sofa, absolutely exhausted. Later that week I sat down with the receipts, anxious to know if we had actually made any profit. I'm happy to tell you that after we paid all of our set up costs, and paid the Kompass & Co youth for their hard work, we had a nice stash of the profits left over to donate to Skeiv Ungdom! They were so happy that we raised money and awareness for LGBTQ rights, and even more inspired by the way we had gone about it.
Sally's Cookies at Oslo Vegetarfestival
Now, almost a year later, I'm back in the kitchen again. This time I am raising money and awareness for an animal sanctuary in Norway: Dale Store Gård. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks of baking, and preparing. So if you are an animal lover or just curious about these cookies that I have been going on about, you should come along to Oslo Vegetarfestival on the 26th - 27th May where you can visit Sally's Cookies yourself!
Triggered!
Have you ever seen a post on the internet about something awful which starts with the caveat: Trigger Warning? A few years ago I would post ‘trigger warnings’ on all my posts on social media. Now I understand what triggers really are, I don't think trigger warnings are a good idea anymore.
Online & afraid
Have you ever seen a post on the internet about something awful which starts with the caveat: Trigger Warning? A few years ago I would post ‘trigger warnings’ on all my posts on social media. For example, if I was posting a news story which was about a woman being beaten up by her husband I would write at the top of the post: ‘Trigger Warning: domestic violence’. I was trying to make it easier for people who have PTSD to avoid content which might trigger strong negative reactions. I thought I was being kind, but I was actually quite confrontational and aggressive about it. I critisiced people who shared stuff that I thought needed a trigger warning on it. I created and took part in online ‘safe spaces’ which had rules and guidelines for how to communicate there, and came down harshly on those who didn't follow the rules.
I was putting my energy into trying to control what other people were doing instead of actually figuring out what I could do to pinpoint and challenge my own triggers. It was classic avoidance behaviour, and the more that I did it, the more frustrated I (and the people who had to deal with me) felt. And I wasn’t alone, there were lots of people like me out there. Trigger warnings were all over the internet to the point that it had become a big joke. Triggered had just started to mean ‘anything you mildly dislike’. People would be like ‘They ran out of coffee at work today. Triggered. Lol.’ There was a TRIGGERED meme which people would use to make fun of someone being annoyed or upset about something. It was the modern day equivalent of calling someone a drama queen and laughing at them for overreacting.
Eventually it got to the point where I felt like nowhere online was ‘safe’. I felt disconnected from the world, alone, and afraid. I had bouts of being on and off social media. I would delete the apps and reinstall them, start new social media profiles and delete the old ones. My policing of trigger warnings had become a trigger in itself.
Two years ago I wrote publicly for the first time about being raped, and how we should talk about rape online so that we are kind to rape victims and someone commented ‘TRIGGERED’. I was absolutely devastated. It felt so mean. I felt like a joke. That was when I decided to ask my doctor to refer me to a psychologist.
After a while I understood that avoiding things that upset me, makes them more upsetting. I understood that I can not control what happens in the world but that I am somewhat in control of how I interact with it. I found out you don't need to either endure everything, or shut yourself off completely, that there are ways to make your experience online much less upsetting (it involves not being online so much and just deleting the assholes).
Being nice
My therapist tells me that most triggers are so unique and contextual that it’s impossible to predict what someone will be triggered by. Most people are not actually triggered by posts on social media but in that context we have been using the word ‘triggered’ to describe more general feelings of being shocked, offended or upset. Triggers are commonly something more sensual. In fact the most common types of triggers are smells and noises.
In therapy I have figured out that my biggest triggers are actually noises people make with their mouth and nose. Slurping, burping, sneezing, wheezing, sniffing, chewing and swallowing noises are what actually triggers me. When I hear these noises I suddenly feel weak, small and terrified. I feel as if someone is touching me, and as though I cannot escape. I feel unable to concentrate on anything other than that noise and sometimes I feel so upset that I start to cry. Sound strange? I talked with someone else diagnosed with PTSD who told me that her biggest trigger was the screeching of a train pulling up to a station, and someone else I know said that the smell of garlic has been causing her extreme stress for many years.
So if triggers are that unique, how can we properly give people a trigger warning? I don’t think that we should. If we treat people with PTSD like they need to be protected from everything that’s bad in the world that will only enhance their feelings of fear and isolation. We can’t protect people with PTSD from their triggers, all we can do is try to handle sensitive issues appropriately, and that’s not just being mindful of people with PTSD, it’s about being considerate to everyone.
Ultimate Brownies
I’ve spent a long time trying and failing to make a good vegan brownie.
I’ve spent a long time trying and failing to make a good vegan brownie. All of my attempts basically turned out like brown oily goo (totally still ate them though). I’m not sure if my standards are high or if I’m just holding onto the memory of a brownie experience I had a long time ago, back in Manchester. When I was a student, I worked part time at a magical place called Nexus Art Cafe. It was such an important community place, where I met some of my best friends, learnt how to cook, and really sorted my life out. Nexus means so much to so many people in Manchester, so I was very sad to see that they have been unable to survive the pandemic and are closing. Their departing gift was Hannah & Davids Brownie recipe. I wondered if this was the base recipe I could veganise into the brownies I had been dreaming of, and you know what, it is! I’ll stop myself there, as I can see this has already tuned into a rambling food blogger overly earnest recipe introduction. Damn. Anyway, here is the recipe. Thank you Nexus.
Ultimate Brownies
15 minutes prep, 40 minutes baking, makes 16 brownies
350g silken tofu
550g sugar
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp ground flax seed
315g margarine
200g dark chocolate
100g cocoa powder
120g flour
First of all get the oven on to 180 and line a large cake tin. I use a 30cm rectangular one.
Tip your flax seed into a large bowl and mix with 1/3 of a cup of boiling water. Add the silken tofu, apple cider vinegar, vanilla essence and sugar and then blend everything together with a hand blender until it is lovely and smooth.
Next melt the chocolate and margarine together, and then mix this into the wet mixture too.
Fold in 100g cocoa powder and 120g of flour, and maybe a pinch of salt.
Bake for between 35-40 minutes. Leave to cool before shovelling into mouth.
Not to be dramatic but, I made an app and it changed my life.
Since creating our app the amount of places with veggie options in Norway has increased dramatically. We now have over 1000 places listed in the app, and over 20,000 users. I have learnt so much about app development, the restaurant scene and the vegan scene, and most importantly I have made some friendships that I hope will last forever.
Problem
I had been dabbling with vegetarianism and then veganism for a few years and had started to get serious about cutting out all animal products from my diet just before I started dating Nick. He was the first vegan I had met in Oslo, and I was so curious to find out what his experience was like. I asked him where he liked to go out to eat expecting him to name the same veggie friendly places I knew of. I was surprised when he named a bunch of different restaurants I didn’t know about. He had never heard of the places I told him about either. I sighed, ‘It’s so hard to find vegan places to eat, it takes too much time to scroll through recommendations on blogs and Facebook groups, wouldn’t it be great if there was an app or something that listed all the veggie places in Oslo on a map so you can easily find the nearest veggie place when you are out and about?’ He looked at me and raised an eyebrow ‘Sal, aren’t you an app designer? You should just make it.’
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a really good idea. It would certainly be useful for me and Nick anyway, and it would be fantastic if I could make it easier for people to eat less meat. But should it be an app, a website, or something else? How would I find places to add? Maybe it would be fun to make a little proof of concept? I started doing a little research.
Research & Ideation
I spent the next few weekends walking around Oslo looking at restaurant menus keeping my eyes peeled for veggie options, taking meticulous notes on my phone. In the evenings I analysed other restaurant guide apps, and saw what local bloggers had to say about the greener options available in Oslo. The user would need to find information about where to go when they were out and about, and it needed to take their location into account so it would need to be an app. I made some paper wireframes and then worked on some loose designs and prototypes.
Making the app
I decided upon a nice turquoise colour for the app, and an icon which was based on a dropped map pin. I dug deep into my savings and hired some developers to help me build a database, an iOS app, and connect the two. I signed up for an apple developer license, made a website, an email, and claimed all the social media handles I would need. That’s when I realised that this was really happening. After a month or two of hard work I suddenly found my mouse hovering over the publish button in the Apple Developer Console. This was it, I’d made my own app and soon real people would be able to start using it!
Making Oslo a little greener
I started the app with 30 places and no users. In the space of a week or two, and with a bit of hard work on my social media strategy the user base had grown to 1000! Nick volunteered to help me find places to add to the app so I could focus on promoting it. We spent all our weekends working on the app and testing out restaurants, it was actually really lovely and exciting. Things really took off after Oslo’s biggest newspaper: Aftenposten, got in touch and wrote an article about it. Suddenly the users started pouring in!
Expansion
Every day I would get messages from people who wanted me to make an Android version of the app. I really wanted to, but I couldn’t afford to dip into my savings again to pay for development work. I decided to find a full stack developer who shared my vision for the app, someone who wanted to be my partner in the project. My prayers were answered when I met Christian Ihle. He reached out to me and told me that he would love to work with me on an Android version of the app. A dream team was born. Christian did the development of the database and the apps, and I did design and content.
Soon after we launched the android app we started working on how we could cover other cities. We upgraded the iOS app and included new features in the UI like filters, images, and ways to sort results. We learned that the app had a bit of fanbase and we ended up with a huge group of people spread out across Norway helping us test and find places to add.
More than just an app
Making this app has been a lot of fun and led to so many other interesting experiences. I have held talks at festivals and events, and got to work with big brands and restaurant chains like Peppes Pizza and Deli De Luca to help them develop vegan options. We ended up creating The Nice Awards as part of Oslo Vegetarfestival in which we gave awards to some of the greener businesses in town. Since creating our app the amount of places with veggie options in Norway has increased dramatically. We now have over 1000 places listed in the app, and over 20,000 users. I have learnt so much about app development, the restaurant scene and the vegan scene. But perhaps most importantly I have made some friendships that I hope will last forever. Here are just a few of the good memories we have created over the years.
Four to the floor
I had always longed for something that would be powerful enough to switch off the thoughts that plague my mind. Listening to music was always one of my coping mechanisms, but it had to be the right kind of beat. When I’m dancing to techno, I feel it, I’m free.
There is nothing more frustrating than spending weeks preparing for a meeting with a big client at work and then 30 mins before the meeting seeing a meme about rape, being reduced to tears and having to run from my desk to the bathroom to look myself in there to try and regulate my breathing and calm down, get my mind away from my anxiety and onto my presentation. How about being sat behind someone on the bus and hearing them chomping a burger, the eating noises reminding you of the sex noises you heard when you were raped, rummaging through your backpack desperately for your headphones to find you left them at home. Imagine not having the energy to go a concert that you were really looking forward to because you had been crying for an hour over a documentary. Imagine a friend sneaking up on you for a practical joke and scaring you so much that you burst into tears and almost piss yourself. I wish I didn't have to worry about stuff like this. I wish I could not let things get to me.
I’ve been living with post traumatic stress disorder for a long time. It really affects my life, but most people can’t really tell that I have it because I seem pretty ok on the surface. I go out with my pals, I’m confident, I put on clean clothes every day, shove some makeup on my face, and I hold down a full time job and a relationship but as much as I try to hide it I often find myself suddenly in extreme distress and full of anxiety over an article, a tv show, a piece of music, or a conversation. Flashbacks come to me in the night, and through sounds, smells, places and images. I find it debilitating and I just want to find a way to get through my life without my PTSD slowing me down.
I’ve tried loads of stuff to get over PTSD. The main problem for me is learning how to relax. Relaxing might be a simple concept for some people, just come home, put your comfy pants on, stick a pizza in the oven and get Netflix on tv right? Sometimes that works but it’s not immersive enough to really relax me. My brain is still going on and on with the terrible anxious thoughts and I’m never 100% focused on what I'm supposed to be doing. I tried yoga, but I went to a class once and I had a bad time. I walked into the yoga studio and hated the yoga music, the candles and the general smugness of everyone there. I hated being told to ‘just clear my mind’ as if it was as simple as flicking off a switch. I stood there watching everyone smiling with their foot in the air and felt angry with myself that I wasn’t as calm as they were and then I couldn’t stop my mind from racing. ‘Fuck this’ I thought and left.
I tried having a massage but it was yoga music again pumping out of a little cd player in the corner of the room, and a woman who I didn’t know softly put her hands on me and I just freaked out. ‘Get off me! … Uh, sorry, it’s just um not for me’ I apologised getting dressed, wanting to rip my skin off. I left there feeling even more frustrated than I did when I went in.
I went home and put the kettle on. When I was younger my mum always used to make me a cup of tea to calm me down. ‘Camomile tea will probably sort me out’ I thought. The label hanging off the teabag said ‘Appreciate yourself and honour your soul.’ I stared at it. What the fuck does that shit even mean? Honour my soul? I just want to have a cup of tea and calm down. I felt like everything that was supposed to make me calm was annoying and frustrating to me.
I decided to ditch the tea and go for a beer. I went out to meet my friends in Bergen. There was a night happening at Østre called Ploink and we went down there because it looked pretty good. I was still mad at the tea bag thing and the yoga thing but being around my pals was calming me down a little bit, I just hoped I could get through the night without another anxiety attack.
I went into Østre, and got on the dancefloor. The DJ’s were set up in the middle and everyone was dancing around them having a blast. Being in a club that plays techno is not like being in any other sort of club, no one is there to judge what you are wearing or who you are with, everyone is just dancing and happy, and they don’t care what they look like or what anyone thinks about them, they just want to be immersed in the beat. I took off my jacket and let myself go. Techno is music to dance to. I let my body move in whatever way the music told it to, my feet in a constant rhythm and pattern. I became unaware of anyone else in the room and just focused on the beat. Something was happening to me, I started to feel in control, I started to feel calm. The music was taking me on a journey and I was just dancing all my anxiety away. Is this what meditation is? Am I honoring my soul now? I felt amazing.
I began to realise that techno was so much more than just dance music and started to get into it even more. I went to Berghain in Berlin and had the best night of my life. I felt transformed and completely refreshed after a night of dancing to techno. I felt better than I had done in years.
It made me wonder what it was that was so calming? I think it's mostly because techno music
has another perspective on time and chronology. Instead of the usual verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge chronological order of things, there is something endless going on. The beat goes on and on. Four to the floor, without end. The fact that any one particular track ends at one point and begins at another, it doesn't matter; the music is endless.
I had always longed for something that would be powerful enough to switch off the thoughts that plague my mind. Listening to music was always one of my coping mechanisms, but it had to be the right kind of beat. Now, I’m no neuroscientist or psychologist so I’m not going to sit here and explain to you exactly what happens in the brain when we listen to music but we have all felt the power of a good beat, the release of tension in the groove, the anticipation of the next strong beat and the excitement in the pulse of track. When I’m dancing to techno, I feel it, I’m free.
This story was originally written for Bergen Techno Zine.
Nice to meet you
Hello and welcome to my blog and very first blog post! My name is Sally Renshaw and I am a young(ish) British woman who lives in Oslo, Norway, with my boyfriend and three cats. I've had a funny old life, and when I started to open up about it recently, the people around me started telling me about their lives too. I realised how important it was to talk about our personal experiences, reaching out for help when times are hard, and sharing wisdom on how you can go from coping to thriving. I used to be scared of being honest and vulnerable but I'm not anymore.
Hello and welcome to my blog and very first blog post! My name is Sally Renshaw and I am a young(ish) British woman who lives in Oslo, Norway, with my boyfriend and three cats. I've had a funny old life, and when I started to open up about it recently, the people around me started telling me about their lives too. I realised how important it was to talk about our personal experiences, reaching out for help when times are hard, and sharing wisdom on how you can go from coping to thriving. I used to be scared of being honest and vulnerable but I'm not anymore. That's the main reason I started this blog, and also because it's kind of fun to have a place for all your stuff.
As well as mental health, I might talk about cool stuff too: music, books, movies, food, basically all that classic blogger stuff. It will mostly be about mental health though. Here is a little overview of some of the topics I plan to explore, if it sounds like stuff you are interested in, pop your email address into the subscribe form and you will get my updates sent to your inbox once a week in a lovely email.
My creative work
My background and education is in fine art. I started my career working as an illustrator but now I work as an app designer. In the last few years I have worked on many exciting projects for both big corporations and small independent businesses. My fave projects has been designing my own app, Vegan Norway, and the work I have been doing for the past year at RiksTV, designing their tvOS app. Though that's my bread and butter these days, I still try to get away from apps sometimes, and get back to my roots in fine art and illustration. I love to talk about designing for a good user experience and the creative process behind my design work.
Sometimes life is hard
I have had a colourful life filled with ups and downs. I have managed to get through a bunch of scary and difficult situations, which unfortunately affected me deeply in complicated ways. I struggled with my mental health alone for many years because I was ashamed of myself. I'm not ashamed anymore, and I hope that by talking about my own experience I can help others who have also been through similar things.
Self care
Many people think that self care means treating yourself to indulgent things when you are having a bad day. Whilst that sounds nice (and really tempting) if you are treating yourself all the time to keep rubbish feelings at bay, your self care sounds like more of coping strategy than truly caring for your needs. The key to creating good self care habits is in understanding what your needs actually are. I used to have a lot of bad coping strategies, but now I prioritise self care above everything else in my life.
Helping Others
The better I care of myself, the better I can take care of everyone else! I'm really inspired by individuals and organisations which are making the world a better and fairer place and I want to talk about and get involved with their projects!
Don't miss a post
All those topics sound super interesting to you? Good! To make sure that you don't miss out on my ramblings make sure you subscribe via email, and I'll send you very occasional emails when I've got a juicy new post. Other than that you can follow me on instagram and twitter.
Thanks for reading my blog!