CSS { In Real Life }

A blog about CSS, front-end development, the web, and beyond.

Find out more
  • Time to Ditch Analytics? Tracking Scripts and Web Sustainability

    This article on privacy-focussed web design by Paul Jardine and Becky Thorn of sustainably-minded web design agency Root raises some great points about the link between invasive tracking scripts and the carbon footprint of a website. I’ve often been frustrated by the negative performance impact of adding Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager to a site. Sites that were previously reasonably fast would subsequently perform poorly with regard to Google’s own Core Web Vitals. It seems that many of the products Google actively encourage web authors to add to their sites are paradoxically the ones that have the worst impact on performance. (Don’t get me started on YouTube videos.)

    Read more

  • Quick note

    Talking About Web Sustainability on ShopTalk Show

    When you get an invite from Chris and Dave to appear on ShopTalk Show it’s hard to say no! Despite my longstanding fear of sounding like an idiot on the airwaves, I swallowed my nerves and joined them for an episode on web sustaibaility — althought we managed to delve into a few other topics too. Naturally, right afterwards I thought of a whole bunch of things I forgot to mention (hopefully I’ll get around to writing one or two follow-up blog posts!), but I was pleased to get the chance to talk about this important subject on such an esteemed podcast. I hope listeners will take away one or two things, and be inspired to do their own research.

    Read more

  • Published on MDN

    Creating Color Palettes with the CSS color-mix() Function

    Colors can sometimes get out of hand in a project. We often start with a few well-chosen brand colors, but over time, we may find ourselves adding variations as our project grows. Perhaps we realize that we need to adjust the lightness of a button color for accessibility reasons, or that we need a slightly different variant of a component. How do we ensure that the colors we choose fit within the design system for our project?

    Read it on MDN

  • February 2024 Bookmarks

    I was just collating all the articles I’ve read over the past month in order to post them here when, coincidentally, Matthias Ott’s latest Own Your Web newsletter lands in my inbox! This month it’s all about bookmarks: how you collate them, where you keep them, and how you share them. I definitely need a better way to organise mine, which is why I’m sharing them here.

    Read more

  • Design Patterns that Encourage Junk Data

    A post from Remy on Mastodon recently got me thinking:

    Read more

  • How I Solved My Font Rendering Problem

    Since I redesigned this website last year, an issue with the heading font has been bugging me. I’d noticed that, unlike in other browsers, in Safari on iOS the headings rendered poorly, slightly blurry, as if they’d been faux-bolded. Googling the problem was coming up with nothing, but I’m using a variable font, so I figured perhaps that had something to do with it not being a super-common issue.

    Read more

  • Quick note

    New and Improved Green Web Hosting Directory from the Green Web Foundation

    The Green Web Foundation has recently redesigned their green web hosting directory. Previously the directory was a useful resource for finding hosting platforms that at least claim some sustainable credentials but, as I’ve noted before the information provided by each web host was somewhat limited. From the directory alone it was impossible to discern which providers could claim to be running on renewable energy rather than buying carbon offsets, for instance, or which providers were doing the bare minimum of box-ticking, as opposed to making sustainability a key part of their offering. Finding a truly green web host is hard!

    Read more

  • Eleventy Starter Project Updates

    This blog uses static site generator Eleventy (or 11ty. I have no idea which one is the “official” spelling, and the docs appear to delight in switching gratuitously between the two! Let’s go with “Eleventy” for now.) under the hood. I like Eleventy because it allows me to write blog posts in markdown and use Nunjucks for templates, which get built into HTML file on deployment and served as static files, so it’s nice and lightweight on the client side. I also have an Eleventy starter project that’s been long-overdue for some maintenance. I recently made a few updates, so I thought I’d note them down here.

    Read more

  • Wrapping Up 2023

    I’ve held off publishing a “year in review” post until now because, to be honest, towards the end of last year I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about the state of the web. Normally I like to end the year with a (mostly) upbeat reflection on my experiences, and on new developments in CSS. But for the first time, I feel a sense of trepidation for my chosen profession, and the industry as a whole. It seems every week the headlines are filled with new ways that companies are using AI to exploit workers and fill the web with soulless marketing soup. Additionally, I’ve seen several friends and acquaintances laid off this year, and I have a feeling that trend might continue a while yet. It’s taken a bit of the shine of my enthusiasm for the web, even to the point of questioning whether my chosen profession is still where I want to be.

    Read more

  • Video: Building a Greener Web (Smashing Meets Goes Green)

    Just before Christmas I spoke at Smashing Meets Goes Green an online event focused on digital sustainability. The video of my talk is now online, so if you’d like to know more about this vast topic, jump right in!

    Read more

  • Where Do We Go From Here?

    A question I’ve been asking myself recently is “What is the purpose of this blog”? When I started writing in 2018 it didn’t occur to me that I’d still be doing it five years later. I picked the name “CSS { In Real Life }” because I loved CSS (I still do!), and that was what I was most interested in learning and writing about. But over the course of the years I’ve found myself expanding my writing into different areas: web sustainability, JS, dev ops, front-end in general, and work/life more broadly.

    Read more

  • Workshop Review: Data Visualisation Fundamentals with Andy Kirk

    Last week I had the privilege of attending an online workshop on Data Visualisation Fundamentals hosted by data visualisation expert Andy Kirk. The six-hour workshop was split across two days, and consisted of a mixture of teaching materials, examples and interactive exercises (both individually and in small groups). It can be tricky to find the right balance to hold people’s attention for an online workshop — speaking from my own experience, I find I sometimes struggle to stay engaged compared to attending in person. But the blend of content here, combined with Andy’s presentation style and his expertise and enthusiasm for the subject meant that in this case I felt fully immersed. It appeared the rest of the audience was similarly engaged too.

    Read more