Everyone says the human eye can see 10 million colors.
That number comes from a 1943 estimate that assumed color space was a box.
It’s shaped like a shell.
I counted the colors inside.
I just published in @uxdesigncc The color statistic that’s been wrong for 80 years uxdesign.cc/the-color-st...
I've been writing about design systems for a decade. Turns out I was writing about something else the whole time. New piece explaining where this work is actually going — and why the tools are the same regardless of the domain.
I just published Systems All the Way Down medium.com/p/systems-al...
Every front-end developer has typed font-weight: 400 without asking why 400 means "normal." The answer involves a 24-year-old Swiss designer and German dairy terminology.
I just published in @gitconnected Why font-weight: 400 is ‘Normal’ levelup.gitconnected.com/why-font-wei...
We obsess over what design systems contain. We almost never ask what they actually do. New piece on why that distinction matters more than it sounds.
I just published What Design Systems Actually Do www.designsystemscollective.com/what-design-...
There is a persistent belief in the design systems community that code is the single source of truth. But if code were the sole source of truth in every sense, there would be nothing to test it against.
I just published in @uxdesigncc Why code is not the source of truth uxdesign.cc/why-code-is-...
Every methodology you've been forced to adopt is a watered-down version of something that actually worked.
I just published The Scrum That Actually Worked medium.com/agileinsider...
At Dow Jones, we had eighteen brands running on a single design system. The system looked fine. It wasn't.
I just published Design Tokens Aren’t a Contract www.designsystemscollective.com/design-token...
I'm attending No Kings's event, “Eyes on ICE: Document and Record” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...
Would you like to work with me? 👋🏻 I’m currently helping to strengthen the existing design systems team at Kesko and we’re looking for a nice & talented designer/developer to join us.
arielsalminen.com/2026/hiring-...
Design once had what engineering still has: a tradition of history, theory, and critique that let practitioners appeal to shared principles outside any individual's authority.
I just published Why Engineers Can Say ‘This Is Wrong’ and Designers Can’t www.designsystemscollective.com/why-engineer...
Massimo Vignelli's claimed that without criticism, standards cannot exist at all.
I just published in @uxdesigncc Why design systems fail to resolve disagreements uxdesign.cc/when-agreeme...
Your design system arguments never resolve because the profession destroyed the tools that would let them. Here's when, here's how, and here's what it would take to get them back.
uxdesign.cc/when-agreeme...
The Longest Con in American Economics. Picture men working at a large old fashioned machine turning dollars into Nobel Prizes, diplomas and certificates
Welcome to the Credibility Laundry, where corporate money goes in one end and "Nobel Prize-winning scientific expertise" comes out the other
open.substack.com/pub/theguthr...
Anti-fascism isn’t foreign to America — it is America. 🇺🇸
open.substack.com/pub/theguthr...
Historical precedent: Authoritarian movements test institutional boundaries through dramatic incidents - bypassing normal jurisdiction, controlling information flow, using crises to justify expanded surveillance of political opponents. #Facism, #MAGA, #FBI, #Trump.
Most telling? When shooter's Republican family background emerged, suddenly "unnamed FBI officials" leaked exclusive information to Fox News about a "transgender romantic partner" - even today, there is zero independent verification.
🚨 The Charlie Kirk case reveals concerning patterns: FBI immediately assuming control in a civilian murder without clear jurisdiction or invitation - Kash Patel personally flew to Utah to manage the response.
A red-blooded American male will think about the Empire of Rome at least once per day. Alternatively, how many ways to kill Hitler if you had a time machine.
My boss: Can't you get Copilot to validate the info in the spreadsheet?
Me: Well, do we want it to be accurate or not? Because either I check it myself or I ask Copilot and then check its output *and* the spreadsheet, so...
Boss: What's the point of Copilot then?
Me: Exactly.
It is impossible to maintain democratic norms when a substantial minority has abandoned them. American democracy was purpose-built to prevent the tyranny of the majority, but who could have predicted the minority would shout, 'Democracy is broken, burn it all to the ground'.
Some web developers call HTML and CSS programming languages with a straight face. So, there's that ;-)
If you're drinking coffee with "bright with Floral Notes", it's not coffee. Sunshine and bouquets have no place in coffee.
Goodnight BlueSky
💙🌊✊🏻
One of the things that can kill your design system adoption is all the assumptions your consumers make about it.
I'll be co-hosting The Question with @bencallahan.com this Thursday, where we will discuss all those assumptions, whether explicit or hidden, and what you can do to surface them.
I ordered the children's plate, but they wouldn't serve me because I was an adult. I stomped out because I didn't get my way. Showed them!
When stars align, Moccamaster by Technivorm. It's a difference maker.
Please share this link! Answer the poll!
I have an upcoming podcast this Monday talking about palette colors and it would be great to have more respondents!
www.linkedin.com/posts/kevinr...
