Nikos Tasioulas, Nick to most people, has 26 years of design behind him. He studied graphic design at a college in Athens, did a postgraduate year in multimedia in Wolverhampton, worked for agencies big and small, and has mostly freelanced for the last couple of years.

A Swiss army knife market

His work covers web design, marketing projects and a lot of email. He started designing emails, learned enough HTML to become an email developer, and then got genuinely interested in the marketing side: list building, send timing, structure and automation.

In Greece, he says, you have to be a Swiss army knife. The energy crisis has squeezed people, and clients are slow to pay more for quality. Staying competitive means always adding skills.

The website he never built

In 26 years he never had his own website. No time, no patience, and never the need. Now it is essential. He has developers he trusts who could build it, but he had wanted to learn Framer for a long time, and the structure of the course convinced him to do it himself.

Better at Figma because of Framer

Nick moved from Adobe XD to Figma when Figma took over, and it is still where he designs almost everything. The surprise was that learning Framer changed how he works there. Seeing what each tool solves, and where Figma runs out, pushed him to find new ways around its limits.

“Framer has helped me to become a better Figma designer.”

One piece of advice from Ryan stuck: instead of reaching for a plugin to move a Figma design across, rebuild it directly in Framer. If you know exactly what you want, why build it twice?

The CMS was the hurdle

Effects and styling felt familiar, close enough to Figma that he wonders if it was on purpose. The CMS was the part he was unsure about, since he had never designed or developed a database. Years of advice from good developers meant he understood the logic. The lessons showed him how it works in practice, and finishing that section is when his confidence arrived.

In the Slack, helping out

He became one of the most active people in the community Slack, answering questions when he felt he could add something. He does not believe in silly questions. What is obvious to one person can be a real struggle for another.

Full-stack, eventually

His portfolio is already designed in Figma, and he wants to finish the modules before building it properly. After that, he is thinking about offering Framer sites to clients as a full-stack designer, which he believes will be essential for designers soon. First he needs a couple of Framer sites to show.

“I would say to myself that I wish I had started sooner. At least two years ago.”