Year in Review 2024 – Johan Ronsse

As the year draws to a close, I saw a few “year in review” posts pop up, like this one by Pawel Grzybek. This seemed like a good idea, so I wrote one.

I used to make these year in review websites, where I would experiment with new technology. I also used them as a way to summarize my favorite music albums, movies and video games of the year. The last one I made is actually five years old now. It was the first one I built using Svelte, a web framework I love.

This post is a bit of a different format, as it’s a personal reflection about the year and a look forward. I decided to write about my favorite music, movies, games etc., but also throw in the categories of travel, work and sports to have a more balanced view of what happened this year.

As I noted today on BlueSky to an acquaintance looking for the right “content” to write, this is more for myself than for anyone else. I either write to promote something, to remember something, or just for fun. I find that if you have to call it content, you’re already on the wrong path.

As my wife and I were driving back from Puebla, a city two hours from Mexico City, I looked through the photos on my phone and looked at what happened this year. And boy… it was a lot.

Travel

This year, I traveled to the US twice for work reasons, went to Europe twice (once for work reasons), traveled within Mexico three times and went on a honeymoon. Suffice it to say, this year’s travel schedule was quite packed.

I’ll focus mostly on the things that might be interesting for (techy) readers of this blog.

Vision Pro in Chicago

In April I felt I just needed to experience the Vision Pro, and at the time it was only available in the US, so my wife and me took a trip to Chicago. The demo in the Apple Store was impressive, but I ended up not buying it because of the excessive cost, and the fear that the product would just end up collecting dust somewhere.

The Vision Pro hasn’t been very successful up so far — and I don’t see much talk about it anymore. I think there is a bigger future in computing that feels human enough. The ad of the dad filming his kids with the Vision Pro was really off-putting: that’s not really the future we want. The Orion from Meta is maybe showing glimpses of what could be cool, although I would also find it very off-putting that anybody could just film anybody else without them knowing.

SF for Figma’s Config

In June, I travelled to San Francisco to visit Figma’s config conference. I enjoyed this trip, with a really well organized conference, but also came away with the idea that a conference organized by a single software package is maybe not conducive to a lot of different perspectives.

I also remember thinking for days about the impact of the AI announcements on design tools. Figma kind of removed the feature and more or less silently re-launched it after all the bad reactions. I haven’t felt a need to use the AI features in Figma at all, except recently for the Rename layers feature. I have to admit that’s a nice addition.

Wedding & honeymoon

This year was the year that I got married. As a couple we spent a considerable time organizing our wedding (my wife more than me admittedly). A lot of Belgians travelled to Mexico to attend the wedding. I’m very thankful for everybody who came to attend our special day. We had a ton of fun and it was a really memorable time.

After the wedding, my wife and I went on a honeymoon to Singapore and Bali. I had been in charge of the holiday planning. We discovered Singapore a foodie paradise. Bali was beautiful, and truly a recommended destination, but for us, coming from Mexico, it was sooo far. Even though it is very beautiful, I feel like we kind of travelled halfway around the world to see a beach and a resort most days. Not that we didn’t do anything cultural there, but I felt part of that trip could have been made here in Mexico.

My personal travel resolution: See more of Mexico, like Chiapas and Baja California. Find a way to see nature in a deeper way, like a multi-day hike.

My work travel resolution: I already planned going to Belgium in February to network, see the right people for the start of Obra Studio as an agency and dive deep into the Belgian startup world. In May, I am going to Barcelona for the Svelte Summit.

A secondary plan is to visit a conference in the US, or do a city-to-city trip to visit several local tech meetups.

Music

Aside from a surprise concert by Interpol on the Zocalo (the main square in Mexico city) and a show of Jacob Collier, I don’t recall many live musical events throughout the year. We didn’t go to any festivals, and I also don’t recall a lot of albums that really caught my attention.

I mostly enjoyed music that I could put on while working, like Ocie Elliot, Kevin Kaarl, Kiasmos and Tycho. Peso Pluma (very popular here in Mexico) also works kind of well as background music.

All in all, it was not such an exciting musical year. I guess I had other things that I was focussing on.

My personal music resolution: Make a conscious effort to really listen to new albums. Go to at least two concerts.

Movies

I felt like there were not that many great movies in cinemas. Maybe we are still seeing the effects of the pandemic, and 2025 will finally be a year for better movies. Or maybe I am just not that much into it anymore.

I liked Inside Out 2 for the Pixar take on dealing with puberty and the surrounding anxiety. This might be a movie that parents will reference for years.
I thought Dune: Part Two and Joker: Folie a Deux were mostly more of the same and not that memorable.
I saw Furiosa: A Max Max Saga and Twisters on a tiny plane screen and I actually really enjoyed those. Maybe I should see them again on the big screen.
As for two other favorites: I really liked Challengers, that was a movie like they should be. I also liked watching Civil War in a near-empty cinema, a movie that hooks you until you see the credits roll.

I feel like just as with music, my attention wasn’t really too much on movies either (unlike some previous years).

My personal movie resolution: Dust off my projector and spend some more time watching quality movies. Look more closely what friends are recommending (e.g. on Letterboxd)

Personal finance

An interest that has popped up for me over the past two years is personal finance.

I keep a close eye on the stock market, and think about ways to invest. I talk to friends about investing and think of ways to increase my personal wealth. It’s interesting to see the numbers evolve. I listen to finance podcasts on walks almost every day – maybe a bit too much.

As I am setting up a new business again, I am researching how the tax system works here in Mexico and what my best options would be. Most people find this the most boring topic in the world but I find it interesting; the way that a country decides to tax its people and the policies around it are often a direct result of policies trying to stimulate specific behavior. It ties into a bigger economic picture that I find more interesting to follow year over year.

Series

I really liked watching all the seasons of Billions with my wife, but that’s not a 2024 show. Still, if you don’t know about it, I heartily recommend it.

The Penguin was really good up until the middle of the season and then it got kind of tedious.
I really, really liked The Gentlemen. That was brilliant, and I hope a second season comes.

There’s a few series I started watching, or watched only bits and pieces of, that maybe I should return to: Shōgun, The Bear, and Fallout.

My series resolution: Less random watching whatever pops up on Netflix or Prime, more conscious watches based on friend recs.

Work: main work

I was working as a product designer for Doccle up until the end of October. After 2,5 years there, I decided to leave to challenge myself to build something new.

After some soul-searching, I decided to pick up building an agency again.

There is something about the clarity and variety of project-based work that really appeals to me. I think the lessons I learned from being on the inside of a product organisation as well as those of my side projects can be very useful when going back to being a services provider.

I wrote extensively about this on the blog:

My work resolution: Work hard to make Obra Studio a success.

Work: side projects

I worked on Obra Icons a lot. All of it got a real upgrade, from the website, to the icons in the set itself, to the addition of a Figma plugin and a React package.

Screenshot to Layout grew to more than 10 000 users. The work on it could be continued thanks to a Figma Creator fund grant (Thank you, Figma team!)

My experiments with making apps by prompting where super successful. It’s crazy how far you can get with prompting, even to developing a native iOS app. I am looking forward to take this further in 2025, although I am not sure how much time I will have with me starting up Obra as an agency.

Sports

I bought a Trek road bike in the very beginning of 2024. It changed and influenced my whole year, and my perspective on biking.

I understand biking as a professional sport much better now. I met my Spanish language teacher while biking and he became a good friend. One bike friend led to another and right before my wedding we did a bachelor’s ride with a group of friends.

I had a fantastic ride in summer with a good friend and got to experience the Belgian roads with a new perspective.

Bike culture in Mexico city is phenomenal. Every single day you can find a group riding (if you’re willing to wake up early in the morning). I wrote a bit about this in Dutch here.

As for running… well… let’s say biking took over!

My biking resolution: Finally do La Venta and move on to more challenging rides such as Piramides (100km).

Language learning

In the beginning of the year, I read my first novel in Spanish. As mentioned, I met my language teacher on the bike. We first had two 1-hour lessons a week and then changed it up to a single 1,5 h session a week.

I got better at using the past in Spanish. I still have to work on being better at expressing the future, as well as being better in speaking in general. I would say my understanding has greatly improved, but it’s still not entirely where I want it to be. Especially at busy family parties I can kind of lose track of the conversation.

My language learning resolution: While the repetition was great to keep learning in 2025, I would like a more structured way to learn where I can pass a grade like B-level, eventually C-level.

Games

PS5

One day, I bought a PS Plus subscription for the whole year. At first I felt like I didn’t get the value from it, but then over time, as I checked out different games, I really enjoyed the variety. I re-played the beginning of GTA V, I enjoyed and even finished Dave the Diver and I remember an evening playing Cult of the Lamb furiously.

I am contemplating picking up the new Dragon Age, the Star Wars game on a sale sometime, but I am in no hurry to pay €80 for a video game I might only play a few hours.

As for boxed games, I bought AstroBot for the Christmas holidays and I am really enjoying it.

PC

I also play on PC, mostly games that are Xbox Games Pass. What I do there is dip in and out: I pay Game Pass for a month to play a certain game (like just recently Indiana Jones) and then I cancel my account again. I don’t feel the need to have a full-time subscription.

Switch

On the Nintendo Switch side, I picked up the Nintendo Switch again for the new Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom game and have really enjoyed it. An unplayed copy of the new Mario Party and Mario RPG are (shamefully) still in my Switch carrying case.

Other

I own a Playdate, but the screen is just too small to enjoy gaming for me. I even tried buying reading glasses to alleviate the problem, but I just don’t have the eyes of an 8 year old anymore.

YouTube

I am a big YouTube fan. I find that whatever I find on YouTube is so well catered to my interests I mostly prefer YouTube over TV.

For bike enthusiasts, I can recommend Path less pedaled, a channel about “alt“ cycling with much less of a focus on competitiveness and more of a focus on the joy of riding.

For gamers, I enjoy Gameranx and IGN for their compilation videos. However, I would like to branch out and see more interesting game related videos. If anyone has any channel recommendations, please send them!

Actually, for games, the most interesting media is I follow is actually written. I bought a subscription to Aftermath and GameFile to stay up to date on all things games-related. Some part of me sometimes dreams of being a video game journalist, but then I get back to reality where I know that software design is a much better way to make a living.

I’ve been coffee-curious for a while, and 2025 might just be the year that I invest more time into coffee as a hobby. For that, there’s of course James Hoffmann; but I recently also started watching Lance Hedrick‘s channels.

For tech in general, Marques Brownlee can’t be beat, although the wallpaper app he launched as kind of a miss. I like that Becca Farsace now has her own channel after she left The Verge. I still like that website though, and took the time to get a The Verge subscription when they launched it as it’s my primary source for tech news.

Looking forward

With each passing year, I feel as though time flies by faster and faster.

I already know that 2025 will be an interesting year, with multiple trips planned, the exciting prospect of building a new company, spending time together as a newly married couple, and much more.

Here’s to embracing new adventures!