Following the ongoing technical writing bootcamp at hashnode ,@Chris Bongers asked us to write an article to help our past self solve a difficult problem we have encountered.
As a designer ,I struggled with getting started with open source projects and also contributing to them.
There wasn't a blog article that really explained how to get started as a designer in contributing to open source projects.
Well ,I started my research by just asking my tech friends how to get started with open source.
Because they were not really designers ,they gave some points but not too explicit and in depth ,but they helped spark up my curiosity and I went searching for open source communities that accepted designers to contribute to their projects.
From the Open Source Design page ,I was able to find this list
It contained a list of open source communities for designers .
But , it was just a little step to solving my mystery puzzle.
In September 2020, I saw an application for Outreachy 2020 , it is an open source internship
I applied and made it through the first stage, I picked a Design Community , Which is Fedora Design .
This was a huge win for me . I was assigned a mentor and in no time, I was given a task .
Within a month of working with the design team at Fedora Design ,I was able to contribute to over 4 open source projects while learning ,networking and using free softwares.
It was really pleasant to have contributed to open source design .
Well if I am to advice any designer,I advise you take this route. Use this link opensourcedesign.net/projects
Click on the community you are interested in contributing too.
Join their communication channel ( where the design team hangs out) Some communities use Discord, others IRC ,zuptal , slack and the rest.
Introduce yourself and tell them you want to contribute to their projects .
You can also go as far as checking their github to see they are any open issues. If they are ,asked the mentor in charge to assign you to them . If there are not ,suggest to modify a feature that you feel doesn't work for them
Get to work , submit project ,when you are done and get it pushed.
P.S : Because it is an open source project ,you would be advised most times to use free and open source software for the projects too.
Remember to share your thoughts with me when you finally contribute to your first project as a designer .