Hey friends,

Spring is here! What sound does spring make?

Boing boing!

(That joke comes to you courtesy of my 11-year old!)

Thinking Too Hard 🤔

One of the hardest things about working in client services is that some problems simply cannot be fixed. Client politics and culture are two major factors in any work arrangement that you cannot easily influence.

Culture is shaped by consistent forces gently pushing the same message over and over. Politics flow from the top down through what is perceived to be rewarded and punished. Almost everyone wants to look good, do good, and be recognized. Each company signals indirectly (and sometimes unintentionally) what type of behavior they want to see.

Over time, companies naturally become risk-averse, asking, "How can we make this never happens again?". As a result, policies are put in place that restrict a wide swath of possibilities. These often turn into large committees that diffuse the power required to make decisions, which means moving forward becomes more about persuasion and positioning and less about what is right for the project. The way forward becomes a compromise that leaves no one happy but no one truly upset.

As for-hire design and web 'mercenaries', we often don't have those types of restrictions and policies. We operate within a much wider possibility space. When a company wants to enact change, they often bring in someone else. They externalize the risk — they can always terminate our contract. We can push forward ideas without knowing everything that came before. We can be agents of risk and change inside a slower system.

Part of our role as we work with large companies is to recognize our capability for catalyst and our culpability for risk. To be bold and fulfill our role while walking the tightrope between pushing into risk without passing through the company's tolerance. It's not always easy!

Interesting Web Bits 🍜

Web Stuff

• Jakub Krehel has some opinions on what makes interfaces feel better. I agree... mostly...
• If you need a masonry layout and can swing using rows instead of columns, it looks like you can acheive it with flexbox and some fancy math
• Looks like Vite has dropped the premium model and gone with the other OSS tool path that doesn't involve getting acquired: a custom deployment platform
• Alvin Sng talks about why they banned the use of React's useEffect(). (BUT MUH ANUMAHSHUNS BRUH!)
• Compression is crazy.

Other Stuff

• "But the hurry hat isn’t what you are, it’s what you’re doing."

👽 Weird, 📺 Watch, and 🎮 Play

• 👽 Test your eyeballs for their 'Just Noticeable Difference' ratio? (For some reason, I struggled with the blues? 🤷)
• 👽 Check out the committment to ASCII art from Adel Faure!
• 👽 Ever wanted to try your hand at managing a nuclear reactor?
• 👽 Jonathan Lahue is building a 3D world using "suing Three.js, pure audacity, and construction paper."
• 🎮 A cute, one-button game: 100 Jumps