About

Design leader, mentor, rule of ⅓ photographer, coffee enthusiast

Photo taken by Kate Munsch at Tartine Manufactury

I live in San Francisco, California where I spend my time running, photographing, and saying “hello” to dogs. I currently work as a design manager at Salesforce where I lead a team of designers who create new experiences for mobile applications.

After graduating from Cornell University I joined a small startup named iControl Networks (now Alarm.com) designing home automation and home security software. Five years quickly passed at iControl and I left to work at several more startups focusing on mobile, social, and, of course, Bluetooth radios. Now, with 14 years of experience, I am a Director of User Experience on the Platform User Experience team at Salesforce.

Photography

Since my first digital camera, a tiny, 2 megapixel Canon S200, I have pursued taking the perfect photo. I am drawn to symmetry, patterns, minimalism, and, as mentioned above, the rule of thirds. These days I shoot with a Fujifilm X-T2, and edit in Lightroom either on iOS or macOS. If I’m satisfied with a photo I share on Instagram. If I’m proud of a photo I share on Unsplash.

In between the tiny Canon and the current mirrorless was a journey of curiosity. I had a Nikon DSLR, and a small, full-frame Sony. I was never satisfied. The Nikon was too heavy and bulky. The Sony was too limiting with its prime lens. I’m purposefully skipping over my Holga phase. Now, with a mirrorless camera, I feel a nice balance between size, weight, and performance. It’s important to note that I’m eyeing the Canon R6 when I feel tempted to switch systems.

This website

I’ve had many websites since college starting with a couple files on a friend’s server before hopping between LiveJournal, Tumblr, Hype, Squarespace, Jekyll, WordPress, and now Blot.im. Blot feels like a managed instance of Jekyll which is ideal for me. I grew frustrated managing gems and packages and servers before on Digital Ocean. Now I just edit text files that automatically sync to Blot through Dropbox. Easy.

I keep track of topics to write about in Things, edit CSS in Atom (although I’m very curious to try Panic’s Nova), and write in iA Writer. To optimize images I use a combination of ImageOptim and JPEGmini Pro. Photos are edited on Lightroom for either iOS, iPadOS, or macOS.

On the web

Mastadon dk@mastodon.design
Instagram diklein
Unsplash diklein
LinkedIn diklein
Substack diklein
Email me@diklein.com