2025: A Year of Firsts, Milestones, and Endless Blessings

As the final days of 2025 wind down, I find myself sitting in a quiet moment of reflection. If I could describe this year in one word, it would be Grace. Looking back at January, I never could have imagined just how much would change, how much I would grow, and how many prayers would be answered in ways I didn’t even know how to ask for.

Before the calendar turns, I want to take a moment to look back at the highlights and say "Thank You" to everyone—and the One—who made it all possible.

The Year of Breaking New Ground

 

This year was defined by stepping out of my comfort zone. For the first time in my life, I packed a suitcase and headed to the airport for an international flight. Singapore was everything I dreamed of and more. Walking through the streets of a different country for the first time is a feeling I’ll never forget. It opened my eyes to how big the world is and how blessed I am to be able to explore it.

Passion in Motion: Basketball & Bikes

 

If you know me, you know I can’t stay still. 2025 was the year I truly prioritized my health and my hobbies:

• On the Court: I played more games of basketball this year than ever before. There’s nothing like the adrenaline of a good game and the brotherhood found on the court.

• On the Saddle: Bicycling remains my therapy. I’ve leaned further into bike vlogging, sharing my rides and the beauty of the road with all of you.

• The N+1 Rule: I officially welcomed my 15th bike to the collection this year! Each one tells a story, and I’m grateful for every kilometer they’ve carried me.
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

A Milestone of Stewardship

I’ve always believed in working hard and being disciplined with what I earn. This year, through my career and God's provision, I reached a personal financial milestone I’ve aimed at for a long time: saving over a million. I’ll keep the exact figure between me and my bank account, but I share this not to boast, but to testify to the rewards of hard work and divine favor.

My Deepest Gratitude

None of these milestones mean anything without the people to share them with.

• To My Career: Thank you for the opportunities to grow and the stability to provide for my dreams.

• To My Family & Friends: You are my backbone. Thank you for cheering me on, whether I was boarding a plane to Singapore or just finishing another long ride.

• To God: Above all, everything I have belongs to You. Every breath, every peso saved, every safe trip, and every win on the court is a gift from Your hand. Thank You for Your unshakable faithfulness in 2025.
  
  

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As I look toward 2026, my heart is full. I don't know what the next year holds, but if it’s anything like this one, I know I’m in good hands.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever."

 

It’s been a year since my last post. Again, this is a more personal, non-work, and non-UX related update about me. This year has been a significant break for me as things are going really well with my career. My full-time job is thriving, my side hustles are flourishing, and I’ve saved a substantial amount of money, exceeding my yearly goal.

I remain very active in biking, and I’ve recently added basketball to my routine, having started playing this year. Additionally, I’ve acquired four more bikes this year. I’m not sure if it’s an addiction, but I get excited every time I build a new bike and it motivates me to cycle more.

Professionally, I’ve learned a lot working with a fantastic team of developers on a new product. This experience has significantly contributed to my growth as a UX designer, and I now consider myself a UX Engineer due to the complex UX work I’ve been doing. Again, til my next post :)

The busy designer - my long absence in blog writing.

As a designer, I often find myself overwhelmed with work. From client pitches to product design, I'm always on the go. As much as I enjoy my profession, I often find myself wishing I had more time to pursue other passions.

One of those passions is biking. While I don't have enough time to join a competitive team, I still enjoy leisurely rides whenever I can. I also love taking my bike apart and fixing it up. I'm always tinkering with the components to make it perform better and look better.

The other passion I have is designing for clients. As a designer, I'm constantly pushing myself to come up with new ideas that will make my clients' projects stand out from the crowd. With each project, I'm looking for ways to be creative and innovative while also meeting the client's needs.

Between bike rides and client projects, I often find myself with little time to do anything else, including writing blog posts. However, I'm always looking for new ways to make my time more productive and efficient.

In the end, I'm thankful for my life as a designer. I get to pursue my passions while also helping others reach their goals. Even though I don't have enough time to.

Sincerely,

The Bar

1 Year after pandemic.. Evolved. Promoted. Matured...UX Designer/Engineer

This took me a while to post this. I dont have a design blog post for the whole year of 2021. As I was busy with our new setup at work. It was a challenging year, with all the pandemic cases rising and the typhoon odette challenges, it is still but a good one as I got promoted to Senior UX Engineer. 

Now, more complicated tasks to come. I wanna thank my company with this and hoping to grow more and become a better UX Designer.

Bored during NCOV Quarantine, I’ll just do design work then (at home)

It’s been a long time since my last writing a design blog. The truth, I was very busy lately being a full-time designer and at the same time, a freelancer. No luck also lately that we had a global Corona virus outbreak and everyone is on a lockdown, quarantined and forced to do work at home.

Despite that I have limited resources here at home, I have tried my best to do design work even to the best of the quality I can provide. Limited resources in a sense that I have no adobe design software at home and internet here sucks as well.

Anyway, just recently my good friend from UK who owned an IT company hired me to do a redesign job for his company’s website. This will be my first time doing a project that I am gonna applying a UX process, from analysing the information needed to be placed on his site, doing the wireframes, the high-fidelity and etc. It was an honour since my friend trusted me to do this from end-to-end, though I haven’t finished them but somehow on the development of my output is looking good. A big thanks to my experience here in working in ACN, this helped me improve as a UX Designer.

I will post the update of this project soon.

Why Transition to UX Designer

It was long ago I worked in a multinational company for 5 yrs as a graphic designer when I first heard of UX Design. I really thought of UXD as something that isn't for me. Until I got an invitation to work for a Swiss based software development startup company as a Senior Marketing Designer. It was a tough work since I'm doing 2 roles as a designer that does marketing stuff and designer for development (working with devs). It was then that I got introduced to do a UX and UI related work where I was tasked to do UI designs for a certain mobile and web app. It was then I realized that Interface designing alone is not enough to come up with a good output but it was needed to study the overall experience of the user when interacting with your design. I was also told by my bosses that eventually my salary would be higher because of my role transition since being a user experience designer is paid higher than a regular designer.

According to Payscale US - UX Designers earn almost twice of that of the average graphic designer. E.g. a graphic designer in the US receives $42,000 while UX designers receives $74,000. 

UX Designers also are high in demand, since UX Design is closely related to business, companies prefer to keep the (UX design) job within the organisation rather than outsourcing them.

Transition to User Experience Design

How it all started

My background was in graphics designing and I have spent 4 years preparing for a job as a UX designer. This includes studying new skills that were required for the role and preparing a new design portfolio that shows the type of output that is about. Even though that I have undergone a very long time of training, my role in the company I worked was still in an associate level despite I was a senior designer on my previous job. It was a good thing though that I have a good mentors that helped and guided me to become one of the good UX designers in my team right now.

What made me enjoy UX Design

I realize that it was not designing alone that made me love UX design, it was the other skills and roles that you do when you are a UX designer. There can be up to 3-4 roles that u can do as a UX designer (Visual Designer, Interaction Designer, Researcher, and Information Architect) and I enjoyed doing all of them.

With the continuous change in technology, UX/UI design is highly in demand to help develop innovative products for users. And also, big companies are creating products that will help ease internal tasks. The reason why many graphic designers are willing to make a transition to UX design roles. Also, UX designers are highly paid compared to a regular designer.

Absence on the whole 2018

Hello Everyone! Its been so long since my last post. I am inactive for the whole year of 2018 as this was the year where I transitioned from graphic designer to UX/UI Designer. I trained hard and worked my ass off on numerous freelance projects and I moved to a new organization as well. I am still doing designs still and i have an insgtagram account for my logos and vector works @michaeleigram, u may follow me there and show some love and support.

Anyway, I will be active again this year and might be posting some of my new works. Stay tuned.

Design work of 2017

This is a very late post of summing up all of my finished work!
(Take note, mockup templates are not mine, only the designs)

Meantees (clothing line brand)
AM Window Solutions (branding)
Belcal (Travel agency brand)

Beauty Getaway Collateral Design

My good friends Vanessa and Carlisle invited me to design their marketing materials on their newly opened business, Beauty getaway. I am very happy to be part of their team and proud somehow of my contribution.

Not so much to show, see designs below


  
 

Jambert's Wedding Invitation Design

Made an invitation for my friend Jambert whos getting married this november.. Part of the design on the invitation was a caricatures of their families (see attached below). This is a simple festive filipino-themed wedding invitation.

Wedding caricature design

Illustrated a caricature for my good friend Ricky on his wedding. Done in adobe illustrator, a simple vector caricature.. I am not that good of an illustrator but trying my best to master illustrating a person's face.


see illustration

Simple design work to help friends

Designed a simple tarpaulin for my crush and good friend Anna Marie, happy with the great achievement shes done last year (passing the 2016 Bar exam). Shes no ordinary woman, shes my dream girl.

see tarp design

Glamour Shot photo retouch

I have also experimented on skin tone editing, once again I have my good friend Gayle as one of my subjects.

See samples below

Photo retouch work of 2017

Its been almost 3 years since my last doing a photo editing work. Anyway, meet my new client Gayle. Shes my colleague and I've been happy having her as one of my subjects on my recent showcase on my portfolio.

see photos - Before and After

Year-ender vectors.. all japanese inspired minimalist. For  me, the simple feel, less/flat colors still looked good. Thank u guys for viewing. Merry Christmas

My latest vector artworks

Here's a recent vectors I have just made.. whenever I'm facing a computer and bored, that's when I do vector. Most of my subjects are women since they inspire me... except for that last piece since it is obvious that it is me (self portrait). Enjoy Guys!

Coleen Garcia

Karina Elle 

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Annie Reyes Capisnon

Myself

Liza Soberano Vector (retraced)

The original vector traced I got it from deviantart, by Brett Martin.. Anyway, I have a retraced to a vexel to vector version for tshirt print purposes. See artwork below

Natures Spring Homepage visuals

This is one of my favorite projects for this year so far. I was assigned to create visuals for the upcoming natures spring website.. So far this the concept of the Nature Spring timeline page

see below

Cure for depression

I am not gonna write the details of the story, anyway this is the only memory I have with them.

(Artwork done with adobe illustrator in 5 days)