CategoryDesign

June 4, 2025 — What’s the best way to make your SVGs faster, simpler, and more manageable? In this article, pioneering author and web designer Andy Clarke explains the process he relies on to prepare, optimise, and structure SVGs for animation and beyond. Read more…

June 3, 2025 — Designers love to craft, but polishing pixels before the problem is solved is a time-sink. This article pinpoints the five traps that lure us into premature detail — being afraid to show rough work, fixing symptoms instead of causes, solving the wrong problem, drowning in unactionable feedback, and plain fatigue — then hands you a four-step rescue plan to refocus on goals, ship faster, and keep your craft where it counts. Read more…

June 2, 2025 — Designing for neurodiversity means recognizing that people aren’t edge cases but individuals with varied ways of thinking and navigating the web. So, how can we create more inclusive experiences that work better for everyone? Read more…

May 27, 2025 — What’s the difference between data, findings, and UX insights? And how do you argue for statistical significance in your UX research? Let’s unpack it. Read more…

May 21, 2025 — While there are plenty of ways that CSS animations can bring designs to life, adding simple SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) animations in SVG can help them do much more. Andy Clarke explains where SMIL animations in SVG take over where CSS leaves off. Read more…

May 15, 2025 — Remember that last team brainstorming session where you were supposed to generate a long list of brilliant ideas? How many of those ideas actually stuck? Did leadership act on any of those ideas? In this article, Eric Olive challenges the value of exercises like brainstorming and explores more effective methods for sparking creativity to improve design and enhance the user’s experience. Read more…

May 14, 2025 — What if you could take your CSS animations beyond simple fades and slides — adding an extra dimension and a bit of old-school animation magic? In this article, pioneering author and web designer Andy Clarke will show you how masking can unlock new creative possibilities for CSS animations, making them feel more fluid, layered, and cinematic. Read more…

May 8, 2025 — The Penpot team is not slowing down on its mission to build a free design tool that not only offers powerful design features but is also well-integrated with code and modern development practices. In its latest release, Penpot, as the first design tool ever, introduces support for native design tokens. Let’s take a closer look at this concept and how you can employ it in your process. Read more…

May 7, 2025 — Have you ever thought about how the limitations of early cartoon animations might relate to web design today? From looping backgrounds to minimal frame changes, these retro animation techniques have surprising parallels to modern CSS. In this article, pioneering author and web designer Andy Clarke shows how he applied these principles to Emmy-winning composer Mike Worth’s new website, using CSS to craft engaging and fun animations that bring his world to life. Read more…

May 6, 2025 — There were duelling proposals floating around for adding support for masonry-style layouts in CSS. In one corner is a proposal that extends the existing CSS Grid specification. In the other corner is a second proposal that sets up masonry as a standalone module. Well, not until recently. Now, there are three proposals with Apple WebKit’s “Item Flow” as the third option. The first two sides make strong points, and the third one merges them into one, all of which you will learn about in this article. Read more…