Web Animation Ambassador
Award-winning cartoonist turned web animation advocate.

I’m an invited web animations expert at the W3C, founder of the Animation at Work Slack and Web Animation Weekly Newsletter, and collaborator with Mozilla on cool things like DevTools Challenger and the Web Animations API docs at MDN. I’ve also helped people tackle bringing motion and animation into design systems like Lightning Design System.
Available for speaking, consulting, and giving workshops.
Street Cred
- Wrote Animation at Work with A Book Apart
- Published in Smashing Mag, A List Apart (twice), 24 Ways, Adobe Inspire, Quartz, Offscreen, and Net Mag.
- Curator of Web Animation Weekly.
- Invited Expert at the W3C advocating for the web animation community.
- Nominated for Net Awards 2015 Developer of the Year.
Interviews
- Interview Friends Talk Frontend Podcast
- Interview Shop Talk Show Podcast
- Interview User Defennders Podcast
- Interview Changelog Podcast
- Rachel Nabors, Web/UI Animations Expert Origins: how women in tech got their start
- Interview You are Strong Women in Motion
- Interview with Rachel Nabors Part 1 and Part 2 Developer Tea
- Animating the Web with Rachel Nabors The Web Ahead
- Web Animation API with Rachel Nabors and Dan Wilson Shop Talk Show
- Using Animation to Enhance Your UX UIE Brainsparks Podcast
- Web Animation & Interaction Design The Web Platform Podcast
- Comics and Code The Code Newbies Podcast
- OSCON Interview O'Reilly
- The Fantastic Rachel Nabors Web Friends Podcast
- Rachel Nabors on How Speaking Can Help and Hurt Your Business Ladies in Tech Podcast
- Talkin’ CSS, Animation and X-Men with Rachel Nabors SitePoint
- Interview with Rachel Nabors Non-Breaking Space Podcast
- With Rachel Nabors Shop Talk Show
- A Peek into Rachel's Workshop Draw Me a Robot
Rachel's (Inspiring? Hard luck?) Story
Rachel was raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains where she learned goose wrangling and Photoshop. After watching Chasing Amy at the tender age of 14, she started making comics which helped her escape rural poverty and lead to several industry awards: A Kim Yale for best new female talent and a Nerdlinger in 2007 which she still trots out at parties to resolve comics-based disputes amongst guests.
Rachel had always built sites and tinkered with opensource CMSes to help manage her burgeoning following and promote her comics. When life happened, she shifted gears whole heartedly to web development, grudgingly leaving her fandom behind. Trying to find the niche where she belonged, she experimented with working in web design, UX, programming, and finally settled into front-end development.
The widespread adoption of CSS Animations and Transitions rekindled her creative spark in 2012 when she delivered her first talk on Flashless animation. After that, she was hooked! And thus she fled traditional employment in pursuit of the moving web.
Rachel loves studying birds, playing Pokémon, wearing boots, making comics, and helping people learn. When not biking around the city of Portland, you can find her tending her orchids or brewing a hot cup of golden tippy Yunnan in a gaiwan pot.
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