CSS is great, so let's celebrate that in The Index #162 with some nice open source design tools as a treat too. Sponsored by Web Day Out. piccalil.li/the-index/162/

I do love the way @scott.is speaks (or, in this case, writes). It's cathartic to see someone be reasonable and "professional" without being stuffy and corporate. I mean how often to you see high quality writing that isn't afraid to use the fuck word? Love his work <3

@scott.is here with his Joker origin story piccalilli.link/md-q-and-a-1

'I love GIMP, but come on, it’s pure, unadulterated “I see your stepdad’s been on the Linux forums again” vibes.' - @scott.is on @piccalil.li The open source design stack piccalil.li/blog/the-ope...

I’m not a designer, but when I do work on design I feel validated with my choice of software: html and css!

Fantastic look at open source options for design work by @scott.is over on @piccalil.li. Useful info, and a fun read as well. piccalil.li/blog/the-ope...

Scott Riley tested free and open source design tools out when researching his course, Mindful Design. They actually worked out better than Figma ever could, as he explains in this article with loads of options for you. piccalil.li/blog/the-ope...

We've got a real mixed bag for you to tuck into in The Index #161, featuring some very heavy stuff, but some equally delightful stuff. Sponsored by our friends at Web Day Out. piccalil.li/the-index/161/

Such a pleasure to welcome @donnie.damato.design to the Piccalilli writer's guild. You can *hear* the New York when you read it.

Getting the contrasting color from another in CSS has been something I've always wanted, and you may have wanted too. You can do it today, without waiting for the dedicated function!

While we wait for contrast-color() to arrive in all browsers, these CSS-only approaches by Donnie D’Amato give us a practical way forward that we can use right now, along with lots of other knowledge on how colour works in CSS. piccalil.li/blog/some-cs...

It was International Box Sizing Awareness Day yesterday, so here's a quick explainer from @bell.bz on why it's so useful and why he thinks it's one of the most important methods in our CSS arsenal piccalil.li/blog/interna...

Reading @scott.is's Q&A article for Mindful Design whilst planning some marketing stuff for @piccalil.li and some of these answers are like therapy for my perfectionist brain. piccalil.li/blog/a-qanda...

We've got a couple of very nice websites, a handy personal site tool and Sass for you to wrap up the week with The Index #160, sponsored by our good friends at Polypane. piccalil.li/the-index/160/

Andy Bell is completely redesigning his personal site from scratch and breaking down each part to educate and hopefully, inspire you to build your own corner of the internet. We start with an overview of how this project is going to work and why he's doing it. piccalil.li/projects/per...

An accessibility deep dive, fun with the web (and learning), AI being anti-labour, a legendary accessibility book being free to everyone and a very handy CSS tool. We've got it all in the Index #159, sponsored by Polypane. piccalil.li/the-index/159/

Offer ends Monday!

Accessible Faux-Nested Interactive Controls, by @[email protected] (@piccalil.li): https://piccalil.li/blog/accessible-faux-nested-interactive-controls/ #accessibility #conformance #html #nesting

Very nice website, built by the legendary Cassie Evans. gsap.com/SOTY-2025/

A thoroughly good article here. TetraLogical again coming through as the canonical resource for quality accessibility work. tetralogical.com/blog/2025/12...

Happy Friday! We've got a nice collection of CSS links for you today, with a nice ambient sound maker to wrap up your week, in The Index #158. Sponsored by Web Day Out by Clearleft. piccalil.li/the-index/158/

A great rundown of actual prototypes being so much better than interactive pictures, AKA Figma prototypes. adamsilver.io/blog/design-...

After years of growing design teams, addressing the quiet part loud: design management isn't always a ladder upward. Wrote about the tension between becoming a manager vs senior/principal level for Piccalilli to start 2026.

It is the year of the personal site already, but maybe this tool makes it the year of RSS for you too? www.disnetdev.com/blog/2026-01...

So often, the default career growth path seems to be management, even when that doesn't match someone's skills and personality. Unfortunately, this often results in very bad managers. It's not the only way though, as Ron Bronson walks us through. piccalil.li/blog/some-ad...

There's…um…lots going on in the world right now, so to help, here's 5 very good links in The Index #157, including our new favourite personalsit.es website feature. Sponsored by Web Day Out. piccalil.li/the-index/157/

@tink.uk joins us in May for All Day Hey! 2026. In her talk "Do Androids Dream of Accessible Webs?" she'll explore the intersection of accessibility and AI.

Some fun inspiration for your personal site redesigns! (Because let’s face it, who among us these days isn’t doing a personal site refresh)

Our friends from @piccalil.li & @set.studio have advertised #SotB26 We love their support you should sign-up to the index, it's a great newsletter piccalil.li/the-index/15...

Not gonna unnecessarily rush myself bc fuck that, but I'm so excited to get through Mindful Design so I can get on with making myself a personal website

It is the year of the personal site, so here's 5 personal sites of different flavours to inspire you. Sponsored by State of the Browser. piccalil.li/the-index/156/

It is the year of the personal website! A corporate-free website starter project — using Eleventy — seems like a solid way to get you started as we see it. getzeropoint.com

You can't nest interactive controls on the web, but you can fake it 'till you make it. @piccalil.li let me ramble on about how to do exactly just that, because they're champs. #a11y piccalil.li/blog/accessi...

The urgency seems to increase on a daily basis. This isn’t a hating on the US thing either, it’s a sensible way to protect you and your organisation from the US tech industry. disconnect.blog/getting-off-...

A really common user interface pattern is a big clickable area, such as a card. Sometimes you need controls within that card that are also clickable. There's lots of ways to do it wrong, but fret not, @ericwbailey.website is here to show you how to do it right. piccalil.li/blog/accessi...

Entirely flattered by the mention of getzeropoint.com here. Get started on your new site today! Now, even!

Very pragmatic, practical and straightforward to implement checks here. zeroheight.com/blog/5-acces...

Always remember to not presume prior knowledge when writing tutorials. You don’t need to explain everything, but at least use links to send people to good explainers. anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-...

The Index #155 is here with a nice mixed bag of links to inspire you in the year of the personal website, blogging and getting away from the US tech industry. Brought to you by State of the Browser conference. piccalil.li/the-index/155/

📜 "Date is out, Temporal is in" An article by @wil.to on problems found in the ancient JS Date API and how they are solved in the modern Temporal API 👍 Focuses on immutability and ergonomics of calculations. Love the kicker.

Temporal is the Date system we always wanted in JavaScript. It’s extremely close to being available so our own Mat Marquis thought it would be a good idea to explain exactly what is better about this new JavaScript date system. piccalil.li/blog/date-is...

We like how this article demonstrates how frustrating this stuff is with the painfully slow reveal of each line. dbushell.com/2026/01/09/d...

A fascinating look at how some common APIs really work. The speech synthesis one was a real eye-opener. polypane.app/blog/not-all...

This is rather worrying! www.alanwsmith.com/en/37/wa/jz/...

The best time to replace Date would’ve been back in 1995 but the second best time is Temporal.Now. @piccalil.li writing at its best. piccalil.li/blog/date-is...

Ah, I bet that's because I’m Hacking the Gibson™ to lift the signup form from piccalil.li/javascript-f... on my site. I’ll get that sorted, but that link should get the same job done in the meantime. Appreciate it!

I love that @piccalil.li’s Complete CSS comes with a lesson on how to use Slack properly. Because yes, if you just send me “hey”, you go straight on my enemies list.

"Friction, when designed deliberately, serves a different purpose. It introduces a pause. A moment of awareness. A small resistance that asks the user to pay attention to what they’re doing, rather than simply passing through an interface on autopilot. " carlbarenbrug.com/friction

We’ve been on a long journey to find a replacement for Notion here, ever since they went full slop. Docmost is doing a good job of that! docmost.com