Today marked another celebration at TWG.. Vivian is graduating.

But it didn’t start as a celebration. In fact, when Vivian first told Andres and I that she wanted to embark on her own, to grow her own business as a designer, we were taken aback, and the self-inspection began..

“Why wouldn’t she want to do that with us? Have we been taking her for granted? Why can’t she stay?”

A couple beers and many late night conversations later, I realized that personal and professional growth shouldn’t be treated like a zero sum game. The goal is always for both sides to benefit, and while change is tough, the relationship we have, and the great work we accomplished with Vivian won’t go away. We’re using this as an opportunity to start the next evolution in TWG, just as Vivian is about to embark on her own.

Let’s talk about Vivian..

Vivian joined us a year and a half ago. It was after many years of furtive glances and much mutual admiration, that Vivian left her previous position, and promptly joined us to give us a boost in our design abilities, and take us over the top. Her design skill, creativity, understated brilliance, humility, organization skills, off-colour humour, willingness to shotgun a can of beer, coupled with uncanny punctuality, and occasional clumsiness, make her one of a kind.

We <3 Vivian

TWG is a community of designers, developers, thinkers – people who love what they do. For some of us, TWG will be a life-long commitment, and for others it will be a fun post-university fling in the Greek isles, but without the lingering itching. We’re building our own post-modern company, and it needs to be a happy place to work and grow. That’s one thing we don’t want to change, and that’s what makes this special.

The great news is that Vivian’s going to be a superstar, and we got to work with her along the way. Also great news is that in the months ahead, she’ll continue designing a bunch of exciting new projects with us as a (superstar) freelancer, she’ll show up at our parties, and send us cool links. It was a great 18 months .. and I’m looking forward to the next.

Cue inspirational words from Shatner…