Today we are featuring Anyssa Ferreira, from São Paulo, Brazil. Anyssa is a Product Designer with broad experience in business and academia. In this series, we highlight members of the BlackPress Slack channel who are doing amazing things with WordPress.
What do you do? What are you passionate about?
I’m a product designer with a background in front-end development. I’m passionate crafting good digital experiences for users, by creating websites and other digital interfaces, from the conceptualization, to the visual design and often also programming.
How and when did you get started with WordPress?
I started using WordPress to build my own portfolio website around 2008. Once I started freelancing, WordPress became my go to platform when crafting websites for clients. By 2013, I had established an web agency, and we were working almost exclusively designing and developing sites with WordPress.
How do you use WordPress?
I tend to work with projects that require me to use WordPress more as a content framework. It provides a solid structure that I can use as a base to publish and manage all kinds of content. Whether it’s a portfolio, a news site, or an online store, I always start by mapping the content structure. Then I design a website structure following the WordPress principles, to adequately store, display and organize that content. Designing the visual elements is much easier when the content has a clear hierarchy and flow.
With WordPress, I’ve built a variety of websites beyond the typical blog format. From personal portfolios to high-traffic news portals, e-commerce stores, SaaS platforms, multilingual corporate sites, and even headless WordPress setups, and more.
How has the WordPress software or community helped you to grow or helped you accomplish a goal?
The WordPress community has been an integral part of my professional and personal growth. Over seven years of involvement in organizing Meetups and WordCamps in São Paulo, and speaking at multiple WordCamps and other conferences all over Brasil, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with so many kind people, make friends, work with big players of the national and international market, and travel.
Receiving the Kim Parsell Scholarship in 2015 from the WordPress Foundation was was a deeply impactful experience that encouraged me to continue advocating for inclusivity.
Attending WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin, and speaking at WordCamp Europe 2020 were incredibly rewarding experiences. I’m very grateful for the people in all the WordPress communities I had the chance to meet along the years.
What is something you’d like to do or build with WordPress in the future?
I’m excited about the new possibilities emerging from the block-based site construction logic we now have. I’m eager to experiment with these features and explore how we can build better, and more “modular” websites.
When you were little, what did you want to do when you grew up? Do you still want to do that?
As soon as I started using computers around 6 or 7 years old, I knew I wanted to work with them. By the age of 13, I was already exploring Photoshop and FrontPage, and I decided I wanted to be a web designer. I feel very lucky to do exactly what I’m passionate about since I was a kid.
What do you like to cook for other people?
While I don’t often get the opportunity to cook for others, I enjoy preparing cozy Brazilian food for my family. For example, pork chops sided with rice, beans tutu, farofa and Brazilian-style collard greens. Additionally, I enjoy making pastel, filled with either ground beef or a “pizza” filling of cheese, tomato, and oregano.
