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Matt Ström-Awn

@mattstromawn

Designer, etc. https://mattstromawn.com

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09.09.2023
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Latest posts by Matt Ström-Awn @mattstromawn

Kinda wild given our conversation on Monday. I think it’s extremely rare for an inventor to profit from their invention.

08.01.2026 03:53 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Wireframe Live weekdays @ 5pm ET Transparent Design Talk

Today @mattstromawn.bsky.social is my guest on Wireframe Live for the first show of the new year! Catch us at 5pm ET today. 👀

wireframe.ds.house

05.01.2026 18:26 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Happy to get input and suggestions for future additions! We’ll be continuing to add to the spec in lots of ways and want as much input and discussion as possible to guide the process. Just open a discussion on GH :)

30.10.2025 11:52 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Functions and the future of design systems A new paradigm powering the next generation of design systems

Just re-read @mattstromawn.bsky.social: buff.ly/xqE8kN9
- #DesignSystems are moving from static “dictionaries” to dynamic “functions”
- Dynamic logic enables adaptive, personalized, and accessible UIs
- Tools like CSS clamp() and Material’s dynamic color make this future possible

29.10.2025 16:26 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Talking Heads got so tired of being called The Talking Heads that they put out an album called “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads”

28.10.2025 23:26 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Decentralizing quality Why moving judgment to the edges wins in the long run

New essay! What the heck is "quality", anyway? And how can we intentionally and meaningfully create it in our work?

matthewstrom.com/writing/dece...

30.09.2025 18:55 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

also a fabulous year for naming web things (suckerfish dropdowns!)

11.09.2025 18:50 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I will be the Glenn Gould of bad takes

11.09.2025 14:19 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

taking a cue from jazz & blues, if you repeat yourself enough times it gets interesting again. To that end I will write a “should designers code” think piece every week from now until the heat death of the universe

11.09.2025 14:14 👍 9 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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The product design talent crisis Why we should invest in the next generation of product designers

Did some research of my own here, if it’s useful: matthewstrom.com/writing/prod...

30.08.2025 20:20 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

A really monkey’s paw moment for designers who wanted a seat at the table

21.08.2025 23:49 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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The product design talent crisis Why we should invest in the next generation of product designers

New essay! Bad news: the “check engine” light is on for the practice of product design as a whole.

matthewstrom.com/writing/prod...

01.08.2025 17:18 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

the prevalence of em dashes in ai writing means my writing is almost certainly in the training data set

29.07.2025 19:28 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
APM List: Associate Product Manager Job List

Putting it into the universe: any company out there want to hire me to help them build an "associate product designer" program, modeled after many tech co's "associate product manager" programs (apmlist.com)? There's a lot of potential in the market right now.

29.07.2025 14:40 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

You know what's better than a 3-legged stool? A 4-legged stool.

(please send biblically-accurate stool memes)

21.07.2025 14:31 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Footnotes - bringing them up to side notes or popovers, but keeping the end-of-page ones for semantics and accessibility

17.07.2025 22:19 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The current desire for “Super IC” designers is possible because of a previous investment in coaches, mentors, and managers, that helped develop those folks.

As companies cull managers and hire “player-coaches”, the next generation of ICs will lose out on much-needed development opportunities.

16.07.2025 12:11 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Is there anyone out there doing AI for design using computer vision (segmentation, world model, etc) instead of using language (LLMs, transformers, etc)?

15.07.2025 13:21 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

definitely, and also depends on the relative productivity of what you're switching between.

11.07.2025 16:54 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

It's true that the coding takes longer, but there's some extra productivity due to what you can do while the agent is working.

11.07.2025 16:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Based on a few weeks of using a coding agent, i think the recent result that coding AI slows developers comes down to two factors:

1. Coding agents allow the developer to multi-task
2. Multi-tasking involves context switching, which has a penalty

11.07.2025 16:45 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

troubleshouted

09.07.2025 02:37 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

If you're working with design tokens, you might have noticed that the color format has been updated in the latest editor's draft at tr.designtokens.org/color/. But updating your tokens files is a snap! Here's a node script you can run that will get you up to speed: gist.github.com/ilikescience...

03.07.2025 18:23 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

They’re calling him the Fizzler

02.07.2025 21:25 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I was an early adopter! Looks like I bought a license in 2013. I think it was the first time I used markdown.

Keep doing great stuff, and lemme know if you ever need design help :)

24.06.2025 14:56 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

And if you don't need any of those things, but wanna work together anyway, you should still get in touch :)

24.06.2025 13:47 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

After ~10 years of in-house design leadership, I'm going back to my roots as an independent designer. If you need:

- 0 → 1 design partnership
- Mentorship, coaching, or design org design
- Early stage design strategy, especially in AI and Fintech

Get in touch: hello@mu.design

24.06.2025 13:47 👍 10 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

Worst,

23.06.2025 17:47 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Kirby is a gem, and @bastianallgeier.com has been at it consistently for … more than a decade? I love a small team building a great product.

23.06.2025 12:56 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I can trace my entire career back to my ability to customize the scrollbar of my friends' xanga pages

18.06.2025 15:07 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0