About Tom DeForest

About Tom DeForest

Welcome to smallandsimplethings.org! I’m Tom DeForest, and I’m glad you’re here! Small & Simple Things is my dream — my very own Design Studio! Here, I channel my creative energy to design, write, and share good things.


The gory details

Family

I am happily married for 25+ years. I love my wife and our five daughters. I know a little about my ancestors. I treasure the heritage they've left to me and my family.

Japan

I lived as a missionary in Japan for two years. I practice Japanese everyday in Duolingo. I'm still planning my return trip to Japan. My wife and I made our dream trip to Japan in Nov 2023! It was awesome! Now I want to go back with my whole family.

Design

All of my personal and professional pursuits revolve around art and design in one form or another. I've worked as a design leader and mentor for two decades. I love my work and love helping others find the joy that I've found through the discipline of design.

  • Graphic Design
  • Visual Identity
  • Typography & Fonts
  • UX Design
  • UI Design
  • Copyright and Intellectual Property (armchair) Law

In my free time, I design t-shirts for fun and profit! Well, at least it's fun.

Code

This site is built in Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub Codespaces makes it possible for me to edit and preview my site on my iPad. No one is more surprised than me that I figured out how to do this.

  • GitHub
  • Codespaces
  • Docker
  • Jekyll
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript

I write about these topics on my blog and explore them in my projects.

Maybe you’d like to collaborate with me on your next project.