Kevin Fox, Google’s user experience designer responsible for helping design Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader 2.0, has announced he is leaving Google to join a “very small start-up.” Today is his last day at Google, after being with Google for over four years.

Kevin did not say the name of the new company he will be working for. He did, however, express his love for Google:

Google is the first place I’ve ever worked where I feel that I’m part of the company as opposed to working for the company.

Like I said above, he did not name the new company but he did drop some hints:

Time will tell, and I’m looking forward to sharing new and making shiny.

This is the first of many big changes in 2008 (there’s that whole getting married thing as well), and I hope to share them with you. I’ve neglected the personal side of myself on the internet for too long, and at least to start off, I’m going to start blogging every day. Shared items and Tweets are great and all, but I do miss the blogging.

Postscript: I just got word that Kevin has joined the FriendFeed.com team.

Related Topics: Google: Employees

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz