Words that would otherwise be coming out of my mouth

Luke and Michelle dive into the pros and cons of the idea of a global design system.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

What’s this? Some Heydon Pickering commentary on utility-first CSS? Allow me to fetch my popcorn.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

I found this to be incredibly captivating.

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 […]

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.

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 […]