Category Archives: Tech Thoughts

Design is never done

“People are time bound entities transiting from cradle to grave. Any “solved problem” that involves human beings solves a problem whose parameters must change through time.” – Bruce Sterline, 2005 The bold emphasis is mine. This quote is from a Luke Wroblewski tweet that resonates strongly with me as a web designer/developer. If the point […]

Challenges of getting into a ‘deep work’ state

Read Cal Newport’s book Deep Work for a refreshing take on the state of our minds in the 21st century. Also, the following video is a must watch if you think that social media could be impacting your attention span. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E7hkPZ-HTk I’ve been noticing more and more lately how social media use has an effect […]

Using utility classes (like Tachyons) on a Drupal 7 project

We all want to move quickly to create awesome interfaces right? Well, if you’re on Drupal 7, you know that it isn’t exactly the best system to quickly make great front end interfaces with. I’ve recently found that using Panels/Panelizer and the Tachyons’ spacing classes, I can crank out interfaces very quickly. This is beautiful […]

The most important design principle: Be inclusive

I’ve made some previous posts about design systems, which are all the rage in 2017. We are still working through the creation of one at my organization. One of the core parts of design systems are principles. These principles ideally shape the future of design for an organization. The most important thing that I keep […]

Crafting a design system for higher education

As a front-end developer at a University, I can see first hand why design systems can be such an integral part of an organization’s communication (and marketing) strategy. This post aims to explain the reasons why large organizations, including higher education, can benefit from having a robust design system in place. What process is like […]

What’s the difference between style guides, pattern libraries, and design systems?

In my organization, we’re trying to implement an integrated marketing plan which will be helped along greatly by a sound design system. In order to implement this properly, a shared vocabulary needed to be created so we could be sure we were referring to the same thing. In this post I do my best to […]

Follow up on scalable, maintainable CSS

I wrote down some ramblings about this subject a while back after first reading about it through @mrmrs on Twitter. The idea of single function CSS classes was weird and seemed unnatural at first, but I was very intrigued. I considered this idea around the same time I was realizing that, at work, I basically keep […]

Thoughts on scalable, maintainable CSS

https://twitter.com/mrmrs_/status/713314317890879488 This post is heavily inspired by the article referenced in the above tweet. If you haven’t already read it, stop what you’re doing and go read it. Every once in a while you come across a post that challenges your assumptions and makes you take a step back and evaluate your process. I know […]