Jun 19, 2020Gravity 3: Colour systemGravity 3, the latest version of buildit’s design system, has completely revamped how we apply colours when styling UI elements. Our new system makes all UI components chameleons that can automatically blend in with the colour scheme of their surroundings on a page, and it does so purely with CSS…Colors12 min read
Jul 11, 2019Learn to walk before you runFront-end web developers have a vast, amazing and constantly changing set of tools, approaches and frameworks available to them. Many therefore feel pressured to keep up with the latest and greatest. Are we all condemned to participate in this never-ending rat race though? The world of web design and development…Web Development9 min read
Sep 1, 2018Hardcore CSS calc( )Sometimes things seem complex in a design but turn out to be easy to implement in code. Other times, elements of a design that appear simple at first glance turn out to be very tricky to implement. This is the story of one of the latter cases… The challenge A couple of…CSS8 min read
Aug 13, 2018A Tale of Two ButtonsMuch ink has been spilled about different approaches to styling UI elements on web pages and apps. The prevailing wisdom is for designers and developers to approach UI design and development in a modular way. …CSS11 min read
Jun 15, 2018Introducing Buildit’s Gravity design systemTo support the creation of our recently redesigned Buildit @ Wipro Digital website, we have also created a nascent design system and its name is Gravity. This is the story of how Gravity came to be and where it is headed next. The motivation Buildit has had a website and a small…Design Systems12 min read
Apr 28, 2017Design System Architecture (TL;DR version)If my full-fat post about Design System Architecture is too long for your taste (Medium estimates it’s a 12 minute read), then you might prefer this summarised version… At Buildit we’ve done a fair amount of work on design systems. …Design Systems2 min read
Apr 28, 2017Design System Architecture (full-fat version)This ended up being a lengthy post. If you’re in a hurry you can check out the TL;DR version to get the gist of it and come back to this one later. I recently attended WEBdeLDN’s “The Evolution of Design Systems” meet-up (great event, btw!), where I was fascinated by…Style Guides12 min read
Apr 18, 2017WYSIWYG Must DieNow that my clickbaity headline got your attention, I should qualify my inflammatory statement a little: “WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) in the context of producing interactive user interfaces Must Die”. Pixel Perfect Dreams The idea that you could visually design your app or website in a tool and then…Design9 min read
Jan 20, 2017Hands on with Samsung’s Gear 360I recently got a Samsung Gear 360 on loan courtesy of The Insiders. It’s a camera that can record 360º photos (up to 30 megapixels) and 360º videos (up to 4k 30fps). When viewed via appropriate software or online services, you can interactively pan around the photos or videos in…Virtual Reality9 min read
Jan 17, 2017Some Principles ApartBack in October I had the good fortune of being able to attend the excellent An Event Apart 2016 Orlando, a three day web design conference. The speakers were all well known and highly respected figures in the web design community. …Web Development7 min read
