honestly the fediverse has been more fun than twitter ever was. the timeline is slower, the conversations are longer, and nobody is trying to sell me a course. this is what social media should feel like.
hot take: 90% of "typography is broken on the web" complaints are actually "I haven't set line-height and measure properly" complaints. The browser defaults are bad but the fix is two CSS properties.
working on a sidebar redesign for a client project. left is current, right is the proposal. less chrome, more content. the nav doesn't need
I think the key insight here is that design systems aren't products — they're shared languages. When you treat them as a product with "customers," you end up building features nobody asked for and optimizing adoption metrics instead of usefulness.
maggieappleton.com
tiny Figma tip that saves me 20 minutes a day: set up a component for your spacing tokens as invisible frames with auto-layout. drop them between elements instead of manually entering padding. your future self will thank you.
https://utopia.fyi
found a roaster that ships single-origin beans in compostable bags with actual tasting notes instead of vibes. this shouldn't be noteworthy but here we are. highly recommend @heartroasters.
inclusive-components.design
the barista asked if I wanted to take a photo before I drank it. yes. obviously yes.
if you're thinking about making a personal site, just do it. it doesn't have to be perfect. it doesn't need a blog. put your name, a sentence about what you do, and a way to contact you. that's a website. everything else is extra.
andy-bell.co.uk
printed a type specimen sheet for a variable font I've been playing with. there's something about seeing letterforms on paper that a screen
Why I'm Betting on the Open Social Web
Centralized social media had its run. Here's why I think the next decade belongs to protocols, not platforms.