On Friday night, I needed a break from screens, so decided to work on a bathroom mural that our family has been chipping away at for the last 4 years.

But a lot was on my mind, so made the decision to work on a long-overdue redesign of my website while painting the mural. What started as an experiment turned into the most fun I’ve had in the 30 years I’ve been making websites.

I want to share the video with you here:

The video is nearly three-hours long (sorry not sorry) because I want you to see the real-time process. Along the way, I reflect on the deeper questions and ramifications this radical new process unearths.

A genuine paradigm shift

The feelings of flow that I get when playing music or making art for hours on end never fully transferred over to my digital work, largely because of the mechanics of the process. Clacking away at a keyboard has always introduced a lag between my speed of thought and my creative output. I’d bump into the limits of my backend/config skills, hit a wall, and would give up. These limitations no longer exist.

With each passing day, I'm feeling my mindset shift around what's possible. This truly is an existential moment of what it means to be a designer, a developer, a creator. I find myself asking questions like: what's Good, what's Bad, what's essential, and what can be safely left behind? Gone are the days of any Right Way of doing things. Instead I’m leaning into what I’m calling The Creative Infinite.

We live in challenging times, and in so many ways that’s the unfortunate truth. But we also happen to live in a time of boundless creative opportunity. And we need to harness that creative potential to design a better world together.

Excited to create. Excited to help teach others to create.

As I’ve been evolving my own practice, I notice how much I depend on my knowledge of foundational concepts and fluency in design/technical language. Even as the means of production are rapidly transforming, the need for us to understand core concepts, design materials, and creative/technological opportunities matters more than ever.

How do you go about doing that? Well, that’s the question we’re answering with our online courses. We’re passionate about not just wielding these powerful new design materials ourselves, but also to teach the worlds’ creative professionals how to master them as well. I’d love it if you checked out our courses:

• AI & Design Systems - Join me, Ian Frost, TJ Pitre, and our growing community of practitioners exploring the intersection between AI & Design Systems.

• Subatomic: The Complete Guide To Design Tokens - the theming power of design tokens is proving to be a critical foundation to explore infinite design directions while still being grounded in sound systems.

• Atomic Design Certification Course - This course covers foundational concepts around design systems, which I’m finding critical to getting the results I actually want

• MEGABUNDLE - Get all three courses at a significant discount!

We care about teaching people foundational concepts and practical implementation. We care about helping people bring new magic down to earth and actually show how to implement this stuff in the real world. We care about empowering people to imagine better ways of making things, and then giving them the concepts, tools, and materials to then go do it.

Into the great wide open

I've spent over half my life creating for this beautiful and unique medium that is the World Wide Web. From the moment I made my first Dragonball Z Geocities website, I could feel its boundless potential. I can say without any hyperbole that I've never felt that boundless potential as much as I do right now.

But I think it's important to it's really important to not just wield this powerful new technology, but to give a shit about doing things right.

That's why I love being a part of the World Wide Web community. That's why I love being a part of the design systems community. We aren't just pumping out shit work to make a quick buck. We value quality. We value thoughtfulness, craft, nuance, and collaboration. We value systems. We seek truth. We work in service of others, creating tools, processes, and standards. We compromise and make pragmatic calls for The Greater Good. We're committed not just to betterment, but commitment for betterment for everyone.

I feel these qualities and attitudes is the world needs right now. We are at the forefront of showing the world how to wield this powerful new technology, but to do so responsibly and in pursuit of a better world. The founding values, principles, and ideals of the World Wide Web are still alive. Still out there. Still true. And I think it's critical to rekindle those values and infuse them into this new technological era.