• Theme.json inspires

    WordPress themes have been stuck. It wasn’t their fault they were being asked to do so much and often had to pretend they were plugins. The end result of this was seen in code weight, style stagnation and generally a lack of excitement around themes compared to the years gone past. I don’t say this […]

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  • Look before you work

    I had a Labrador that was fearless about jumping into the water. No matter what body of water it was, she would launch herself into it, seemingly without checking the depth or anything in a blissful trust of the water. Of course, we’d all love to have that total trust as we start a project […]

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  • My talk writing process

    Over the years, the way I write talks has varied. It’s morphed and iterated to a place where there is a particular flow I go through every talk. I wanted to share this as often I feel the creating of talk is an unknown thing, so here is how I do just that. Note storming […]

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  • Lithosphere: a theme seed

    I took some time over the holidays to plant a seed and create a new theme for this and a few sites. I had a few objectives this time around that I wanted to achieve and the biggest of these was to create a foundation I could experiment from over the coming year. Keep it […]

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  • The start of a block building journey

    Over the holiday break, I set myself a challenge of building an editor block. While I have worked within blocks and the editor, I have yet to make a block. The time had come to change that. Now, I want to be clear before I write this post that my JavaScript skills are still light […]

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  • Design Ops in Open Source

    This post is from a talk given as part of the Joint Futures conference and is the transcript presented. You can find the full slides here. Imagine a space where anyone can comment on everything you create. Where people across the world unite to create something given away for free. Where no matter what your skill you could […]

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  • Being Brave

    This post is from a talk given as part of the JS for WP conference and is the transcript presented. You can find the full slides here. The word ‘brave’, means different things to different people. What comes into your mind when you think of being brave? Is it of someone saving someone? Is it […]

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  • Thinking back to the role of design in enabling community

    As 2019 begins and the noise of social networks rings in our ears, I can’t but help reflect on the state of communities online. Can anything be salvaged from this current state of noise? What can design bring to the table in enabling communities. Back in 2013, I was lucky enough in May of that year […]

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  • Speaking when you are not made for speaking

    This weekend I spoke at WordCamp Manchester and again feel privileged for every chance I get to have space for my voice. This isn’t a talk where I share my slides and notes though, this is a little more personal. Speaking for me often seems something every part of me isn’t made for. This isn’t […]

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  • Gutenberg design basics

    Have you ever wondered what something is called within Gutenberg? This guide is meant to help by giving the names and the expected behaviour of some of the basic design elements. If you want to build blocks and extend Gutenberg, knowing what to use or not is important. This is meant as a starting point, […]

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