Our family was raised on The Weather Channel. So much so that Ian became a meteorologist. So this video that steps through the Local on the 8s over the years gives me all the nostalgic feels. | Continue reading
Every time I read about how is being applied in the world, this graph immediately pops up in my head: As the potential to do harm increases, there must be a corresponding increase in the level of caution, skepticism, and […] | Continue reading
One of my favorite Josh lines that’s really stood the test of time and cuts through a lot of noise in a conversation: Don’t put crap in the design system. Josh Clark What is crap? Crap is rushed work, low-quality […] | Continue reading
I had a fantastic time chatting with a group of design system wizards, Nathan Curtis and Ben Callahan. Geoff Graham did a great job facilitating the conversation, and we covered a lot of ground! | Continue reading
Here’s a pretty damning read about LLMs’ impact on the web. Just how SEO produced an extremely lucrative-yet-icky industry, optimizing web content for AI models seems inevitable. SEO will morph into LLMO: large-language-model optimization, the incipient industry of manipulating A … | Continue reading
Recipes are a critical — and often misunderstood! — layer in the design system ecosystem. First of all, what exactly are recipes? As the name suggests, recipes combine ingredients to create UI experiences that are complex, delicious, nutritious. The design […] | Continue reading
There have been tons of design system roundup sites over the years, but The Component Gallery by Iain Bean is particularly well designed and fun. | Continue reading
Here’s my pal and frequent collaborator TJ Pitre with The Value of Design Tokens in Modern Web Development. TJ’s post is a good overview of design tokens and the various aspects of working with them in a web development workflow. | Continue reading
Ah yes, this old chestnut. It pops up as reliably as daffodils in early spring. My perspective has changed very little over the years. Telling web designers they don't need to worry about code is like telling architects they don't […] | Continue reading
I had a great chat with Chris Strahl on the Design Systems Podcast, and we covered a lot of ground! We sit down with Brad Frost, a leading voice in design systems. Together, we explore the critical intersection between adaptable design systems and brand identities, unveiling the … | Continue reading
I’m not a “[full-stack] developer”, regardless of what my last job title says. I’m not even a front-end developer, thanks to the JavaScript–industrial complex. I’m a front-of-the-front-end developer, but that’s too long. So, I’m a web designer. And I also […] | Continue reading
One video phenomenon that has me enthralled hook, line, and sinker is people hearing music for the first time. Watching vicariously as others experience amazing music for the first time brings me so much joy. Sure, it’s entertaining, but it […] | Continue reading
If you’ve dabbled in design systems then you’re no doubt familiar with Brad Frost and atomic design. He’s laid the foundation for design systems teams around the world. So in this discussion we talk about the types of challenges he […] | Continue reading
Here are some beautiful words from Jeremy. So write! Share! Publish! But you know what? Screw what the world needs. If we’re going to be hardnosed about this, then the world doesn’t need any more books. The world doesn’t need […] | Continue reading
Luke and Michelle dive into the pros and cons of the idea of a global design system. | Continue reading
As we speak, the battle that platforms are fighting is against generative spam, a cartoonish and obvious threat of outright nonsense, meaningless chum that can and should (and likely will) be stopped. In the process, they’re failing to see that […] | Continue reading
I was recently a guest on the CodingCatDev podcast, where we covered a lot of ground around design systems, including the design system ecosystem, the idea of a Global Design System, and many of the challenges teams face when creating […] | Continue reading
I recently published an article outlining the need for a Global Design System. In my post I stated: A Global Design System would improve the quality and accessibility of the world’s web experiences, save the world’s web designers and developers millions of hours, and make bette … | Continue reading
As organizations race to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to their customers, the ability to innovate has become essential. Building a strong foundation is no longer the end-all-be-all to success; it’s also the ability to reimagine what’s possible tomorrow that truly set … | Continue reading
Why do we see so little reuse of web UI across organizations? Web projects freely use countless open libraries from npm and elsewhere, but it’s rare to find high-quality web UI code which is flexible and reliable enough for immediate reuse. This makes creating great user experien … | Continue reading
What’s this? Some Heydon Pickering commentary on utility-first CSS? Allow me to fetch my popcorn. | Continue reading
We’ve all watched with simultaneous fascination and trepidation as a flood of AI-powered tools continues to wash over the digital landscape. At Big Medium, we help complex organizations design at scale and pragmatically adopt new technologies, so naturally we’ve been putting AI t … | Continue reading
And then she asked an interesting question: Is it art if it wasn’t your idea? I was glad to answer “yes,” and explain to her why — that all art is a copy of something — though I wish I’d had the presence of mind to ask her a question beforehand, like, “If I drew a picture of you, … | Continue reading
I love me some Vulfpeck. Especially the music. But also the aesthetic and really the whole package. This piece of commentary is great for a number of reasons, including his sensible proposed change in business model around music. But the main reason I’m sharing this is when he sp … | Continue reading
Here’s Chris with some excellent thoughts on the idea of a Global Design System. Between this post and our ShopTalk Show conversation, there’s some great stuff to respond to! Chris spells out a lot of tough questions and challenges around bringing something like this to life, and … | Continue reading
I love this entire post from Dave, which matches my experience helping scores of organizations navigate their design system efforts. Design systems are a hard sell on their own, as Dave explains: There’s no particular “hair on fire” problem that design systems solve that instantl … | Continue reading
Woohoo! I am so incredibly excited to announce that Frostapalooza is now live! The show is on August 17th at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA, and you can see the event on Mr. Smalls’ website and get tickets at Ticketmaster. Please get your tickets and get ’em soon; I’m hopin … | Continue reading
Hooo boy, this is great! I had a fantastic time on the ShopTalk Show talking about the need for a Global Design System. It was a great conversation with two people that I feel fundamentally get it; so it was great to be able to dig into the rationale, the details, what would be h … | Continue reading
Exciting news! My Big Medium colleagues and I are launching a newsletter called “A Little Big Medium”. The website does a good job explaining what it’s all about: Love email? Neither do we! But we really, really, really love sharing and receiving genuinely helpful perspectives … | Continue reading
The most crucial mistake in the collaboration between designers and engineers happens when we conflate this division of tools with a need for a strong division of labor. Treating design and engineering as two completely separate processes leads to an isolated waterfall workflow w … | Continue reading
I found this to be incredibly captivating. | Continue reading
TL;DR: This is a call to action to create a Global Design System that provides the world’s web designers & developers a library of common UI components. A Global Design System would improve the quality and accessibility of the world’s web experiences, save the world’s web designe … | Continue reading
This is freaking wild: Retired country maths teacher Robert Martiensen created thousands of artworks in secret. Dude created over 7,000 works of art without telling anybody. That blows my mind. | Continue reading
I don’t know how else to answer this, besides: the gendering of design as women’s work is why people don’t use the title “web designer” anymore. It’s been belittled and othered away. It’s why we’ve split that web design role into two; now you’re either a UX designer and you can s … | Continue reading
This web site presents one reference glyph and basic information for each of the world’s writing systems. Source: The World’s Writing Systems | Continue reading
There is so much beautiful wisdom in this: 17 Life-Learnings from 17 Years of The Marginalian. I’ve been following Maria Popova for years, and have always love the way she’s used hyperlinks to weave through lines across many voices, perspectives, and ages. So this meta-roundup is … | Continue reading
If all the company’s plastic from 2021 were converted into plastic air pillows — the inflated pouches inserted in some Amazon packages to reduce shifting during transit — and laid side by side, Miller said it would circle the globe more than 800 times. This is ridiculous and shou … | Continue reading
OUT: Pattern Police IN: Empathic Sherpas OUT: An overstuffed design system libraryIN: A thoughtful, layer-cake design system ecosystem OUT: Unnecessarily verbose documentationIN: Just enough, just-in-time documentation OUT: Single discipline-focused design systemsIN: Cross-d … | Continue reading
There’s no doubt about it; 2023 was objectively way better than 2022. And 2021. And 2020. And 2018. Our family has been through a lot over the last 5-ish years, and I’m happy to report that 2023 contained no major medical emergencies, deaths in the family, or bizarre incidents. I … | Continue reading
Footer — The only footer gallery on earth. This gives me all the web design gallery nostalgic feels. | Continue reading
This is so cool; I found this image on Facebook that shows the Moog Rogue Tina Weymouth used on Talking Heads’ incredible Stop Making Sense concert film. It’s fascinating to see the song presets laid out using tape and shapes — a nice little system in a pre-digital preset world! … | Continue reading
Well I’ll be, I’ve now been running my own business for over a decade! In January 2013 I left agency life and set out into the world of self employment. When I announced I was going to start my own company, here’s what I envisioned I would be doing: At the beginning of the new … | Continue reading
Here’s my partner Josh Clark with an absolute barn-burner of an article: Ship Faster by Building Design Systems Slower. In our work at Big Medium, we’ve guided dozens of design system teams who have felt the stress of being perceived as a bottleneck that can’t keep up with produc … | Continue reading
I’ve discovered — or rather rediscovered — that playing music is one of the biggest sources of joy and fulfillment in my life. I play music — usually by myself — every day, but it’s the connection with other musicians where the real magic happens. I’ve been thinking about how to … | Continue reading
I’m definitely not trying to single this particular article, but it’s a common misconception about atomic design that’s persisted over the years: Starting Point: The initial stage of Atomic design begins with the smallest design elements, such as buttons, labels, form inputs, and … | Continue reading
What does a mature, end-to-end design system look like in a big, complex organization? What are all the moving pieces, and how do they hang together as a well-considered architecture? What’s required and what’s optional? Hold onto your butts, because we’re going to go deep on thi … | Continue reading
Getting support for accessibility efforts isn’t easy. There are many accessibility myths, wrong assumptions and expectations that make accessibility look like a complex, expensive and time-consuming project. Let’s fix that! Below are some practical techniques that has been workin … | Continue reading
YouTube’s recommendation algorithm led me to this interview I did about design systems with Google Chrome Developers: While it was published in Feb 2020 (), I think it still holds up pretty dang well! | Continue reading