A wonderful year has ended. In 2018, I became the uncle of little Carlo on the exact day of my birthday. I was fortunate to travel to Israel and saw the vanishing Dead Sea, experienced multi-religious Jerusalem, and spent time in the vibrant city of Tel Aviv.

While Germany’s soccer team got the worst results ever in their World Cup history, we faced the hottest summer on record. I found time to visit the lovely Feel Festival again, which I helped to brand some time ago; and I traveled through the south of Spain.

I also got lucky to have worked on cool projects like crafting the UX for the refreshed website of Collonil (shoe care expert with 100 years of tradition); worked on the interface design of a dashboard that controls city trees for better air quality; and created the concept and design for one of imos’s 3D furniture design tools.

When working I do listen to a lot of music, and since 2017 I try to collect my favorites in a playlist. 2018, in particular, was an excellent year for music: There were so many exceptional releases, that it was hard to keep this years’ list slim. However, I am pretty proud of my playlist and can imagine still listening to it in summer 2019.

So, what’s next? What to expect from 2019? Well, taking in consideration global observations like populism, recession, slowing innovation or environmental issues, it is hard to keep hopes high for a good year to come. Besides global developments, I try to stay optimistic within my little lane and hope to find some time learning JavaScript more in-depth, catching some cool projects, traveling a little, investing myself more in sports and friendships, and searching for a new apartment in Berlin, which is kind of impossible. Or maybe… maybe, I shouldn’t stress myself out with these new year’s resolutions.