I’m getting excited for CodePenTo, coming Wednesday, August 12, 2015 in Toronto. This will be my first tech industry event, so I thought I’d tackle a mini-project. I think I’ll stick with my usual subject-matter - Angular-Google-Chart. But since this is a front-end focused crowd - at least I think they are - I’m going to work on something a little more designer-y. I don’t have much of a design focus, or skill-set, myself. So wish me luck.

The mini-project goal is to build a Google Chart with graphics overlaid onto the chart area. I’ve done this before for a work project, but it was kind of a hack. Now that I know how to make this work, I’ll try to clean it up and make it more generic so that it can serve as an example project. I think I’ll make this one Maple. Because… why not?

In honour of the event sponsor - CodePen.ioCodePen - I will be building this example in CodePen. I’ve never used their service, so this will be a first. I signed up already and the project’s very first building blocks are in place - nothing to see yet, but it’s started. You can check it out now, if you want to follow my progress.

I have been listening to the CodePen founders’ Podcast for a few months now, and have enjoyed some bits of insight from an operating startup SaaS.

I actually discovered CodePenTo because I follow the event’s other sponsor, Rangle.io, on twitter. I stumbled across Rangle.io on Stack Overflow Careers,and was very impressed by their employee value proposition. From the outside the seem to have a very strong, forward-thinking company culture. The team looks to be very diverse, and with a focus on continuously learning, and teaching. Were I looking for a job right now, Rangle would be the first place I applied to.

As an aside, I’m also thinking of putting some effort into the design of this site. This is a currently a very blah setup, and I was thinking of adding a bit of colour and a few graphics.