Interview with Brad Frost (@brad_frost, part 1)
Summary
In this interview, Brad Frost joins host Jonathan Cottrell to discuss his concept of atomic design—a methodology for breaking down user interfaces into hierarchical components (atoms, molecules, organisms, templates, and pages). He explains how this approach helps teams work more efficiently across different devices and screen sizes.
Frost and Cottrell explore the surprising parallels between web development and music, noting that both fields attract people who enjoy balancing logical structure with creative expression. They discuss how mastery in any craft involves moving from technical proficiency to understanding when to apply restraint and appropriate solutions.
The conversation touches on Netflix’s documentary series Abstract, which Frost praises for demystifying the creative process by showing that success comes from hard work, trial and error, and perseverance rather than innate magic. He emphasizes the importance of sharing one’s unique perspective and taking action rather than waiting for perfect conditions.
Frost reflects on how buzzwords and shared language—like ‘atomic design,’ ‘responsive design,’ or ‘mobile-first’—can facilitate better teamwork by encapsulating complex concepts in memorable terms. He stresses that teams should define their own language and principles to suit their specific needs and culture.
Recommendations
Books
- Atomic Design — Brad Frost’s book that outlines his methodology for breaking down user interfaces into components. The entire book is available to read online at atomicdesign.bradfrost.com, with paperback and e-book versions also available.
Podcasts
- Song Exploder — A podcast where musicians deconstruct their songs, discussing how they were created. Frost loves it because it shows the creative process isn’t magic but involves trial, error, and happy accidents.
Tv-Series
- Abstract: The Art of Design — A Netflix documentary series profiling top creative professionals from various fields. Frost appreciates how it reveals the hard work, perseverance, and process behind creative success, demystifying design for a broad audience.
Websites
- Soft Skills Weekly — A weekly email newsletter curated by Jonathan Cottrell featuring valuable links about soft skills development. Listeners can sign up at softskillsweekly.com.
Topic Timeline
- 00:00:00 — Introduction to atomic design and Brad Frost — Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode’s focus on breaking design into components and welcomes guest Brad Frost. They mention giving away copies of Frost’s book ‘Atomic Design’ and discuss where to find it online.
- 00:03:07 — What do you wish people talked to you about? — Brad Frost shares that he loves talking about music, describing himself as a musician first. He discusses the universal appeal of music and how it connects people, revealing his background in music theory and performance.
- 00:05:11 — Parallels between web development and music — Frost and Cottrell explore why many web designers and developers are also musicians. They theorize that both fields balance abstract creativity with logical structure, attracting people who enjoy mastering accessible tools to create expressive, functional outcomes.
- 00:13:40 — Mastery and restraint in creative fields — The discussion shifts to how mastery involves moving from technical proficiency to understanding appropriate application. Frost uses the example of Picasso, who deconstructed art after mastering realism, similar to developers learning when to use complex frameworks versus simpler solutions.
- 00:15:22 — Insights from Netflix’s Abstract series — Frost discusses the Netflix documentary series Abstract, which profiles top creative professionals. He appreciates how it demystifies the creative process, showing it involves hard work, trial and error, and happy accidents rather than innate magic. This can encourage newcomers by normalizing struggle.
- 00:23:33 — The importance of action and sharing your perspective — After a break promoting Soft Skills Weekly, the conversation returns to the key factor for success: taking action. Frost encourages aspiring developers to write and share their unique perspectives, as everyone has a different angle that might resonate with others. He addresses common fears and excuses.
- 00:28:26 — Finding your focus and the origin of atomic design — Cottrell asks how Frost found his focused message with atomic design. Frost explains atomic design as a mental model for deconstructing UIs into stages (atoms, molecules, organisms, etc.), developed from his work in responsive design and pattern libraries. He notes it builds on old concepts like modular design but adds intermediate steps for clarity.
- 00:39:01 — Why component-based design is crucial today — Frost explains why component-based approaches like atomic design are increasingly important: UIs must work across many devices and screen sizes without proportionally increased budgets. Creating reusable components provides efficiency and consistency, which is supported by modern tools like React and design software.
- 00:41:44 — The power of shared language and buzzwords — Frost and Cottrell discuss how buzzwords like ‘atomic design,’ ‘responsive design,’ or ‘mobile-first’ create shared language that facilitates teamwork. While terms can be misconstrued, having shorthand for complex concepts helps align teams. Frost emphasizes that teams should define their own language that works for them.
Episode Info
- Podcast: Developer Tea
- Author: Jonathan Cutrell
- Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
- Published: 2017-03-20T07:00:00Z
- Duration: 00:50:54
References
- URL PocketCasts: https://podcast-api.pocketcasts.com/podcast/full/cbe9b6c0-7da4-0132-e6ef-5f4c86fd3263/8a4b0295-8e98-4856-8fba-f1c3590b6f2b
- Episode UUID: 8a4b0295-8e98-4856-8fba-f1c3590b6f2b
Podcast Info
- Name: Developer Tea
- Type: episodic
- Site: http://www.developertea.com
- UUID: cbe9b6c0-7da4-0132-e6ef-5f4c86fd3263
Transcript
[00:00:00] Whether you call it atomic design, or if you want to call it component creation, or something
[00:00:10] entirely different, in today’s episode, we’re going to discuss what it means to break a
[00:00:15] design down into its smallest components.
[00:00:18] And I couldn’t think of anybody better to discuss this with than Brad Frost.
[00:00:23] Today we’ll be interviewing Brad Frost.
[00:00:25] My name is Jonathan Cottrell.
[00:00:26] You’re listening to Developer Tea.
[00:00:28] My goal on this show is to help you as a developer level up in your career in whatever way possible
[00:00:35] that I can help you, whether that’s some form of virtual career coaching, or if it’s bringing
[00:00:42] people like Brad on to talk about these concepts that are so important to our careers, I want
[00:00:49] to help you develop the mindset of a great developer.
[00:00:53] So that’s my goal here.
[00:00:54] It’s going to require some hard work.
[00:00:57] It’s going to require dedication.
[00:00:58] It’s going to require some dedication on your part, but for those of you who are willing to put in the hard work, for those of you who are willing to dedicate yourselves to becoming better, to leveling up in your career, then this show is dedicated to you.
[00:01:12] It is entirely made for you.
[00:01:14] So thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea today.
[00:01:18] I’m so excited to have Brad on.
[00:01:20] I’m going to get out of the way and get started with this interview with Brad Frost.
[00:01:27] Welcome to the show, Brad.
[00:01:28] Hey, thanks for having me, Jonathan.
[00:01:30] I’m really excited about this.
[00:01:32] I’ve been kind of following your work off and on.
[00:01:35] In fact, we were talking before we started recording about how you came to Chattanooga once, and I’m pretty sure that was the first time I had heard of atomic design.
[00:01:44] If I remember correctly, you had already authored that concept at that point.
[00:01:49] Is that correct?
[00:01:50] Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:51] It’s been around sort of since I’ve been working in this fashion since 2013.
[00:01:58] It’s sort of evolved as a concept, and I’ve sort of put it into different formats as far as mediums are concerned, sort of blog posts, conference talks and stuff, and then eventually sort of turned into a book.
[00:02:13] So it’s been a nice evolution.
[00:02:16] Awesome.
[00:02:16] So we’ll go ahead and announce.
[00:02:18] We’re going to give away, I believe we’re going to give away five copies of Atomic Design, the book, which, by the way, where can people find out more about that?
[00:02:28] Sure, it’s at atomicdesign.bradfrost.com.
[00:02:34] There you go.
[00:02:34] Yeah, and I have the whole thing available to read online, but if you want to get a paperback version or sort of an e-book or Kindle version or whatever, I have those as well.
[00:02:47] Awesome.
[00:02:47] And for the people that we give these away to, you can choose the paperback or the e-book.
[00:02:53] We might just do both.
[00:02:55] We’ll see.
[00:02:56] We might just do both.
[00:02:56] All right.
[00:02:57] So.
[00:02:58] So we, on this show, I usually, I ask two questions at the end of the interview, but I’ve decided to switch it up a little bit.
[00:03:07] I’m going to ask one of these questions at the beginning of the interview because it actually opens up kind of an interesting type of conversation that I end up wanting to have at the very end of the interview.
[00:03:18] So I’m going to switch it around a little bit.
[00:03:20] And the question is really simple.
[00:03:22] It’s what is one thing you wish more people would talk to you about?
[00:03:26] Holy smokes.
[00:03:30] That’s a very deep question, actually, to kick a show off with.
[00:03:36] I’ll say just for the sake of sort of going in a non-industry-related topic, I love talking music.
[00:03:49] Music is my life.
[00:03:51] I always consider myself a musician first and foremost.
[00:03:55] But, you know, I’m a musician.
[00:03:56] I’ve just spent a long time.
[00:03:58] You know, I love it.
[00:03:59] I have a great appreciation for it.
[00:04:01] I studied it in college.
[00:04:03] I’ve learned music theory and forgot it twice.
[00:04:06] I’ve, you know, I love popular music.
[00:04:09] I love all sorts of different kinds of music.
[00:04:11] And so I love geeking out about that stuff.
[00:04:15] You could talk gear.
[00:04:16] You could talk, you know, different whatever.
[00:04:20] But, yeah, that is one of those things.
[00:04:22] Whenever people sort of learn that about me or sort of other people.
[00:04:26] People that have sort of followed my work or whatever.
[00:04:28] There are these very special times whenever you can, you know, really sort of get lost in a conversation about music.
[00:04:37] Because it’s something everyone loves.
[00:04:39] You know what I mean?
[00:04:39] It is such a universal language.
[00:04:42] And everyone has some opinions about music.
[00:04:47] Or they enjoy some things or despise other things.
[00:04:50] So it really is such a bridge.
[00:04:56] You know, sort of connecting people.
[00:04:57] So I love any and all opportunities to talk about music.
[00:05:02] Sure.
[00:05:02] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:04] So it’s interesting because we talked about this, I don’t know, countless times on the show.
[00:05:11] There’s, well, let me ask you.
[00:05:12] Do you find yourself running into a lot of musicians in the web design industry?
[00:05:18] Yeah.
[00:05:19] I have a blog post that I’ve been trying to publish for ages.
[00:05:24] And maybe this will be the spark.
[00:05:25] To finally get it out the door.
[00:05:27] But yeah, I was sort of, I’ve joked around about starting a podcast about, you know, web people who are designers or developers or whatever.
[00:05:36] Who also happen to be musicians.
[00:05:38] And I have a theory on it.
[00:05:41] And it’s because basically what web design is, is sort of simultaneously, you know, in art.
[00:05:51] You know, this very sort of abstract thing.
[00:05:53] Like having this sort of, you know, intuition about.
[00:05:55] You know, design principles and sort of color, shape, and, you know, proximity and all of that.
[00:06:01] And having a good sort of eye for that stuff.
[00:06:04] Which is, you can’t sort of, you know, quantify that stuff.
[00:06:09] But then it’s also ones and zeros.
[00:06:11] It’s also code.
[00:06:11] It’s logic.
[00:06:12] It’s programming.
[00:06:13] And sort of the same thing goes with music, right?
[00:06:16] It’s simultaneously this discipline that’s locked up in notation.
[00:06:20] And there’s, you know, specific rules about avoiding parallel fists and stuff like that.
[00:06:25] But at the same time, it is also this totally, you know, abstract thing.
[00:06:32] Like you can’t, you know, you can’t just be a machine and play music back with, you know, the same sort of art that a human can.
[00:06:43] So I love that.
[00:06:44] It sort of like balances this, you know, it’s grounded in sort of like logic and reason and discipline and stuff like that.
[00:06:52] And there’s a lot of people that are attracted to this field for those very reasons.
[00:06:55] But then there’s, you know, which is, I would equate that to someone who’s used to or enjoys working in sort of a more structured format.
[00:07:05] You know, someone that’s reading music, whether at a piano or in an orchestra or something like that.
[00:07:09] But then, of course, there’s people that I consider myself more this kind of person.
[00:07:15] But like someone who can listen to a song and just play along with it or just sort of have a feel for a groove or something like that.
[00:07:23] And I think that a lot of people…
[00:07:25] In our field are attracted to the field for those reasons.
[00:07:30] You know, it’s sort of like abstract.
[00:07:33] You can’t exactly touch it, but it’s more a feeling sort of thing.
[00:07:38] So I love that.
[00:07:39] There’s a lot of parallels between the two.
[00:07:42] And I consider myself to be really fortunate to have fallen into a field that I think activates both sides of the brain and sort of has that same sort of play.
[00:07:55] Yeah, I have a similar theory, actually.
[00:07:58] And I actually added a few other hobbies to this list.
[00:08:03] Or not even hobbies.
[00:08:05] I mean, they’re professions for quite a few people.
[00:08:08] But woodworking is another one that’s very similar.
[00:08:12] And actually flying.
[00:08:14] So like piloting an airplane.
[00:08:17] So and the theory that I’m…
[00:08:20] And maybe this overlaps entirely with yours.
[00:08:22] But what I think it is, at least for me…
[00:08:25] Because I also am a musician.
[00:08:29] And I would say probably half the people at the firm I work at, Whiteboard, are musicians.
[00:08:34] And we didn’t all start a band and then start a web firm.
[00:08:40] I think what it is, is the ability to take this very common tool, right?
[00:08:49] Like a guitar or a laptop.
[00:08:52] Things that are relatively accessible to the average person.
[00:08:55] And then master that thing, right?
[00:08:58] Maybe a little bit less so for a pilot.
[00:09:01] But certainly for woodworking.
[00:09:03] The tools for woodworking are…
[00:09:05] The barrier to entry to getting the tool itself is relatively low.
[00:09:10] But the mastery of that tool and wielding that tool, there’s an art to the actual wielding of the tool itself.
[00:09:18] And then the outcome is quite expressive, right?
[00:09:22] So we have these constraints.
[00:09:25] Of the tool.
[00:09:26] And I guess you could take this and apply it to art.
[00:09:31] Your tools being a paintbrush and a canvas.
[00:09:35] But it seems like this outcome concept of, okay, I’m going to solve something.
[00:09:39] I’m going to make this functional thing that also has expression laid on top of it.
[00:09:46] And I’m going to master my tools in the process.
[00:09:49] That’s really interesting to me.
[00:09:52] A lot of people that I’ve talked to…
[00:09:54] Even in…
[00:09:55] Not just in web development, but also in general computer science.
[00:09:58] A lot of them also have this overlap with carpentry and metalwork and that kind of thing.
[00:10:04] Because they have these very basic tools that they’re using to build these pretty complex stuff.
[00:10:11] It’s a really interesting concept.
[00:10:14] What do you play, by the way?
[00:10:15] What instruments do you play?
[00:10:17] Now pretty much everything.
[00:10:20] Our setup has been a long time in the making.
[00:10:24] And so we have…
[00:10:25] Like a full sort of spread, which is great.
[00:10:28] But sort of by trade or whenever I play in bands and stuff like that was always as a bass player.
[00:10:35] So what about you?
[00:10:37] So I play…
[00:10:38] I started out on…
[00:10:40] I guess technically I started out on piano when I was very young.
[00:10:44] Like most musicians, you have this few piano lessons that get you at least in the door of music theory.
[00:10:51] But I consider my primary probably guitar.
[00:10:54] I also play bass.
[00:10:56] I also play mandolin.
[00:10:57] So it runs the gamut.
[00:10:59] I played saxophone in school.
[00:11:01] And I mean, pretty much anything that I really decide to play for the day, I can pick up and learn enough to play something useful.
[00:11:11] It sounds like maybe you’ve played in some jazz kind of ensembles.
[00:11:17] No, I did have…
[00:11:19] Really? Interesting.
[00:11:20] The sax player in my band in college was…
[00:11:24] A jazz guy.
[00:11:27] So some of the stuff rubbed off on me a little bit.
[00:11:30] But bizarrely, it was always more like…
[00:11:33] I don’t know where this came from in northwestern Pennsylvania, but I always gravitated towards like funk stuff.
[00:11:41] Nice.
[00:11:41] Cool.
[00:11:42] Sort of like groove-oriented stuff.
[00:11:45] But yeah, it sort of also just came up through classic rock and stuff.
[00:11:49] And basically playing all Led Zeppelin records with my brother.
[00:11:54] My cousin.
[00:11:57] So John Paul Jones was like in my DNA as a bass player, I guess.
[00:12:02] Sure.
[00:12:03] Yeah.
[00:12:03] Yeah.
[00:12:04] No, it is really funny.
[00:12:05] But as you were sort of alluding to earlier, it’s like you have these sort of simple tools.
[00:12:10] And as you grow, as you sort of develop either as like a developer or in any craft, there is like this sort of focus on initially sort of mastering the tools.
[00:12:24] Right?
[00:12:24] And sort of like getting to know the tools and knowing what they can do and seeing how far you could take them and sort of focusing on like the sort of technical application of things.
[00:12:34] Yeah.
[00:12:35] And then sort of I feel like once you hit a certain level, you know, because there was a period of time where, you know, I was learning.
[00:12:43] I was learning fast and furious like how to actually play the bass.
[00:12:48] And, you know, just seeing how fast I could play, how many notes I could play, like how, you know, just like stuff it all in.
[00:12:54] Yeah.
[00:12:54] Yeah.
[00:12:54] And then of course, like, you know, as you start sort of getting your head around that stuff, you start learning restraint and you start learning like when stuff like that is appropriate.
[00:13:16] You know, once you have like a better mastery of your tools and know what they can do, you sort of know, you start then focusing on.
[00:13:24] Like when is it appropriate to, you know, shred a bass solo?
[00:13:29] What is it appropriate to, you know, reach for this like crazy framework or something like that versus just sort of doing something a little more reserved or simple or something.
[00:13:38] So I find that fascinating.
[00:13:40] And I think a lot of sort of creative fields go through that as well where it’s, you know, it’s Picasso comes to mind where it’s like, you know, early in his career, you know, just extraordinarily.
[00:13:54] Talented in all sorts of ways.
[00:13:56] But like he could do this like really hyper realistic stuff or like crazy impressionistic stuff.
[00:14:01] And then like, you know, once you have like a mastery of that, you’re like, okay, well now I’m just going to sort of devolve into this like childlike, you know, sort of like whether it’s cubism or whatever else.
[00:14:13] It’s like these things that aren’t sort of technically.
[00:14:17] Right.
[00:14:17] Yeah.
[00:14:18] Technically outstanding.
[00:14:20] I mean, they are in their own right, but it’s like he’s deconstructing things because.
[00:14:24] He has a mastery of the other stuff that came before it, I guess.
[00:14:31] Yeah.
[00:14:31] It’s amazing how applicable this is.
[00:14:33] The more I think about it, the more applicable it seems, you know, for example, as you master object oriented design or something like that, you start to recognize that all of the things that you could do and all the things that you learned in like syntax land when you were learning a language is very similar to, you know, becoming extremely.
[00:14:54] Proficient in terms of speed.
[00:14:56] Right.
[00:14:56] But then you start recognizing, okay, the purpose of this code is far, you know, far different than just for me to express myself all throughout it.
[00:15:07] Right.
[00:15:08] And so then you start using more common methods or, you know, the abstractions that you use are a little bit more appropriate.
[00:15:15] So, which actually leads me right into a really good first question about this craft.
[00:15:22] And it’s kind of based on your recent.
[00:15:24] Tweet about abstract, the, the Netflix series abstract.
[00:15:28] Oh yeah.
[00:15:30] And to be fair, I’ve actually only watched the first episode.
[00:15:32] I’ve heard it’s really quite good.
[00:15:35] The first episode I enjoyed a lot and I’ve heard some folks talk about the series as if it’s kind of like ER is to doctors or like cooking shows are to, you know, quote real chefs.
[00:15:47] But I’d love to know, first of all, what are the, what are a few of the insights that you took away from the show?
[00:15:54] Oh.
[00:15:54] Interesting.
[00:15:55] I’m really curious to what you’re saying.
[00:15:57] So, so some people, sorry to, before I answer, I guess.
[00:16:03] So some people are reacting to the show as it, as if it’s like this sort of very one dimensional view of, of.
[00:16:10] Yeah.
[00:16:11] Yeah.
[00:16:11] So, so the, the, the armed, you know, it’s, it’s like the world is appreciating design for the first time.
[00:16:19] And I’ve been appreciating it for 20 years or whatever the number would be.
[00:16:23] And so.
[00:16:24] So all of this is old news to me.
[00:16:26] It’s not interesting because it’s, you know, whatever, whatever thing that they, they come up with.
[00:16:33] And yeah, I, I, I rejected it pretty quickly because I was like, man, it’s just, it’s, it’s hard to love something with that perspective, you know?
[00:16:41] Yeah, I think so.
[00:16:42] I think it, it’s, it’s very bizarre.
[00:16:45] Like, I think different, different people get into their worlds, whether it’s, you know, their, their hobby, their profession or whatever, whatever they care about, you know?
[00:16:54] To the point where they’re unable to step outside of their own perspective and, and view something from another angle or view.
[00:17:04] One thing I like to tell myself whenever I’m either writing a blog post or giving a presentation or something is like, at one point in time, you didn’t know what you know now.
[00:17:13] And so you need to communicate with that stuff in mind, you know, especially if you’re, man, you’re making a, a, a series on creative professionals.
[00:17:24] Uh, for Netflix, that’s obviously like a broad audience.
[00:17:28] You’re not going to like get some like next level design critiques in there.
[00:17:32] Right.
[00:17:32] It’s just, it’s God, get outside, take a walk.
[00:17:36] Whoever, whoever’s saying that stuff.
[00:17:37] Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:37] But, um, no, I, I really, um, so the series, I guess the, the best way to put it is in summary is they, they follow different people.
[00:17:47] Uh, each, each episode is dedicated to a person who is at the sort of top of their, their game.
[00:17:54] Uh, so the one is, um, uh, on like set design and other ones in illustrator, someone else is a shoe designer for, for Nike and stuff like that.
[00:18:04] So it was really cool to get, uh, you know, to unpack their, their process, how they got to where they, they got, um, you know, what they’ve stumbled over, you know, what, what their challenges have been and stuff.
[00:18:19] And, and why I love stuff like that.
[00:18:21] Another great, uh, sort of parallel.
[00:18:23] If, if people are familiar with the Song Exploder podcast, I absolutely, absolutely love that podcast.
[00:18:31] Um, basically they take musicians and then they deconstruct the song.
[00:18:36] They basically talk about, you know, what, how, how, how.
[00:18:39] Oh, yes, I remember hearing about this.
[00:18:40] Yeah, like how a song came to be.
[00:18:43] And what I love about, whether it’s abstract or Song Exploder, is that it, it sort of just totally wipes away that notion that design is, is magic.
[00:18:53] Or, you know, there, there are people that have it and they, and other people that don’t.
[00:18:58] And it’s, I’m not saying that, that the people that are being featured in here are, are on these shows aren’t, uh, talented, far from it.
[00:19:07] But what it does is it just sort of exposes the fact that the creative process is not some magical thing.
[00:19:17] It’s a lot of trial and error.
[00:19:19] It’s a lot of hard work.
[00:19:20] It’s a lot of rejection.
[00:19:21] It’s a lot of, uh, you know,
[00:19:23] happy accidents.
[00:19:24] Like you, you know, you spill something somewhere and then that becomes the, the motif for the whole thing.
[00:19:30] And it is, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy.
[00:19:32] And like on Song Exploder podcast, you would absolutely love it.
[00:19:35] It’s like, you know, you hear these, these great musicians talking about things and, and they’re like, oh yeah, we were recording this track.
[00:19:42] And, you know, this bozo knocked over the mic stand and, you know, but because we had this cool effect, uh, sort of running through the mic or whatever, it sounded really cool.
[00:19:53] And it ended up being sort of like the thing that makes the track.
[00:19:56] And, and I love hearing that stuff.
[00:19:58] And, um, especially, you know, again, sort of coming back to, to what I was saying earlier about like how, you know, you, you have, you have to recognize that not everyone in the field has, is coming from the same experience, uh, or, or, you know, has the same level of experience or has the same background as, as, as yourself.
[00:20:19] So I think that for a lot of young people entering the field, uh,
[00:20:23] It’s really intimidating to hear people who have been doing this stuff
[00:20:27] for years and years and years.
[00:20:30] And it’s like, man, how am I supposed to get to that level or whatever?
[00:20:34] But whenever you actually deconstruct how something,
[00:20:39] show how the sausage gets made and stuff,
[00:20:41] it should be like a big sigh of relief for so many people
[00:20:47] just because it’s like, oh, wow, I struggle with that same stuff.
[00:20:52] Right, right.
[00:20:53] And it does.
[00:20:54] It’s just, I don’t know.
[00:20:55] I love stuff like that, especially if you’re big enough
[00:21:00] to get featured on a Netflix show or something.
[00:21:05] Right.
[00:21:06] You’ve clearly done something right in your career.
[00:21:09] But again, the stories they tell, just sort of hard work and perseverance
[00:21:15] and, of course, luck and privilege and all of that stuff,
[00:21:19] but capitalizing on that stuff
[00:21:22] and doing good stuff.
[00:21:23] And then that catches the eye of the next project client or whatever.
[00:21:28] And then that snowballs into that.
[00:21:30] And it’s just, I love it.
[00:21:32] I absolutely, absolutely love it.
[00:21:35] And I want more people that work in our kinds of fields
[00:21:39] to recognize that it is a journey.
[00:21:44] Yeah.
[00:21:44] And it’s not.
[00:21:46] Full of failures.
[00:21:47] It’s full of failures.
[00:21:48] And you have to approach it with a sense of humility.
[00:21:52] Like people that,
[00:21:53] that walk around and sort of espouse opinions like,
[00:21:58] you know, like, oh, you know,
[00:22:00] these idiots don’t know what they’re talking about.
[00:22:02] And I do.
[00:22:02] It’s like, holy smokes.
[00:22:04] Like, you know, we’re in extremely fast moving field
[00:22:09] that’s only existed for a couple decades or whatever.
[00:22:14] Right.
[00:22:15] It’s like to have an arrogant attitude for something
[00:22:18] that’s just totally wide open and creative
[00:22:21] and all of that is just,
[00:22:23] I think, really damaging.
[00:22:24] So I hope more people watch shows like that
[00:22:28] and listen to podcasts like that.
[00:22:30] And here, you know,
[00:22:32] you hear that it’s all right to fail.
[00:22:37] It’s all right to work hard on something.
[00:22:39] It’s all right to get lucky and, you know,
[00:22:42] sort of just if an opportunity falls in your lap,
[00:22:46] like recognize it and take it where you can.
[00:22:48] And I don’t know.
[00:22:49] And believe in yourself and your ideas.
[00:22:52] And like, don’t feel like,
[00:22:53] you have to follow a script and stuff.
[00:22:55] So I don’t know.
[00:22:56] There’s a lot to take away from that show and stuff.
[00:23:00] But I do think so many people in, you know,
[00:23:03] I get a lot of emails from aspiring, you know,
[00:23:07] web designers and stuff or people that are in school
[00:23:10] or in their first job and stuff.
[00:23:12] And a lot of people, they are looking for concrete answers
[00:23:16] for sort of like how to, you know,
[00:23:19] get to the sort of peak of,
[00:23:23] the field and stuff.
[00:23:24] And the answer is really, you know,
[00:23:26] you just gotta,
[00:23:27] you just gotta do it and don’t be afraid to.
[00:23:31] We’re going to get right back to the interview
[00:23:33] with Brad Frost in just a moment.
[00:23:35] But I want to take a quick break to tell you
[00:23:37] about another project that I’ve been working on
[00:23:40] that I think you all are going to absolutely love.
[00:23:42] It’s called Soft Skills Weekly.
[00:23:44] And just go to softskillsweekly.com to sign up.
[00:23:47] It is a weekly email that I’m curating.
[00:23:51] It’s a list of links.
[00:23:52] That I find to be valuable that are, you know,
[00:23:56] some kind of discussion on soft skills.
[00:23:59] And pretty much anybody who loves this show
[00:24:02] will also love Soft Skills Weekly.
[00:24:04] It’s really a simple idea.
[00:24:06] I take the things that I’m coming across in a given week,
[00:24:10] the articles, discussions, podcast episodes,
[00:24:14] books, that kind of stuff.
[00:24:16] Anything that I find to be valuable,
[00:24:18] I’m saving that and then I’m curating five to 10 links
[00:24:22] on a weekly.
[00:24:22] And I’m sending those out to people
[00:24:25] who are subscribed to this.
[00:24:26] It’s kind of an insider’s list
[00:24:28] into the various content online
[00:24:31] that I believe to be valuable
[00:24:32] for those of us who are concerned about soft skills.
[00:24:35] And if you’re listening to this show,
[00:24:37] then you’re probably concerned
[00:24:38] about soft skills for yourself.
[00:24:40] Go sign up.
[00:24:41] Use a good email address,
[00:24:43] one that you check on a regular basis.
[00:24:45] You can go and sign up at softskillsweekly.com.
[00:24:48] Of course, we will never spam.
[00:24:50] We’ll never sell your email address
[00:24:52] or anything like that.
[00:24:52] That’s softskillsweekly.com.
[00:24:55] Now let’s get back to the interview with Brad Frost.
[00:24:58] Action is really kind of the underlying,
[00:25:01] the binder of all of the people who are successful.
[00:25:06] We try to determine their patterns
[00:25:10] and we try to determine what is consistent
[00:25:15] between person A and person B
[00:25:16] and they’re successful, right?
[00:25:19] Or amongst the thousand most successful developers,
[00:25:22] what are they doing that’s consistent?
[00:25:24] And you’re going to find that
[00:25:25] there is only one thing that is 100% consistent
[00:25:29] between all 100 of them.
[00:25:31] And it’s just action.
[00:25:33] That’s the only thing that’s 100% consistent.
[00:25:35] Yep.
[00:25:36] That’s a great way to put it.
[00:25:37] You’re going to hear people talk about routines.
[00:25:40] You’re going to hear people,
[00:25:41] and there’s nothing wrong with studying this stuff, right?
[00:25:43] Like maybe there are some things
[00:25:45] that you can find out that can point you in a direction,
[00:25:48] but you’re going to hear people talk about,
[00:25:50] you know, what is your creative routine?
[00:25:52] Or when do you wake up?
[00:25:53] Or what do you have for breakfast?
[00:25:56] Like there’s all these things that we can,
[00:25:58] you know, hyper-focus on and try to optimize our life.
[00:26:02] And really the biggest factor is whether or not
[00:26:05] you’re actually just putting your feet on the ground
[00:26:07] and walking, you know, actually doing something with it.
[00:26:10] Yep. Yep. Absolutely.
[00:26:12] And then I’ll sort of talk about that,
[00:26:14] especially with a lot of people,
[00:26:16] you know, they sort of wonder,
[00:26:18] you know, how did you come to, you know, speak at conference?
[00:26:21] Like I want to, I want to,
[00:26:22] speak at conferences as well.
[00:26:24] Like what, you know, what do I do?
[00:26:26] And, you know, typically my, my advice to them is I say,
[00:26:30] well, you know, start writing, you know,
[00:26:31] like what, what are you, what are you passionate about?
[00:26:34] What do you, what, what turns you on?
[00:26:35] Or what, what are, what are you struggling with at work?
[00:26:38] Or did you have like an aha moment?
[00:26:40] Or did you solve a problem or whatever?
[00:26:42] You know, share, share that in, in, in writing,
[00:26:44] like share that on your, on your personal site or whatever.
[00:26:47] People are always like, oh, you know, like, you know,
[00:26:50] I, I talk about this stuff,
[00:26:52] but you know, this person’s already said it
[00:26:55] and has said it better and stuff like that.
[00:26:57] And it’s like, no, you don’t understand.
[00:26:59] Like you have a perspective
[00:27:01] that is unlike anyone else on this planet.
[00:27:06] And by you sharing your perspective,
[00:27:09] you’re going to come at it from undoubtedly a different angle
[00:27:13] than that person who you think said it better.
[00:27:16] And we do, we all, we all sort of collectively
[00:27:19] like read and listen and,
[00:27:21] and sort of hear people talk about yeah what’s working for them what’s not working for them
[00:27:26] and it might just be that person’s perspective that that’s the thing that goes ah for someone
[00:27:32] else ah now i get it um there is there’s a lot of fear a lot of fear out there for from for people
[00:27:40] going like yeah i want to do this stuff but you know you know reasons a through z for not doing
[00:27:48] it and yeah just get on the ground and walk i love how you said that yeah i i think uh you know
[00:27:55] i want to hyper focus in on this uh on this idea because uh of all the developers you know out
[00:28:02] there that are that are successful in speaking you have a long a long history in speaking i guess
[00:28:07] over over seven years i believe if i if i read the your website correctly uh you can check fact
[00:28:15] check me bradfrost bradfrost.com but anyway um
[00:28:18] this this uh something that i’ve that i want to focus on is this concept of focus
[00:28:26] you’ve been relatively um relatively focused with a few branding messages atomic design is probably
[00:28:36] like if people know you for something they’re they’re going to know you for that right
[00:28:39] and so i think the big question for you know people like me or uh other developers who are
[00:28:45] listening to this show is you know you you’ve kind of found your thing
[00:28:48] that seems to resound pretty well with people. And was there, you know, is there a process that
[00:28:55] you went through or was it just kind of process of elimination or experience or, you know, that
[00:29:02] finding that thing that’s going to resonate as well as that, certainly there’s a lot of luck
[00:29:07] involved with that. But I’d love to know kind of how you stumbled on this concept or if you,
[00:29:14] you know, if you really intentionally sought it out to begin with.
[00:29:18] Yeah, that’s interesting. There’s a few different directions I could go with this, I guess, but…
[00:29:27] Let me interrupt you for two seconds.
[00:29:29] Sure.
[00:29:29] I’m sorry.
[00:29:30] No problem.
[00:29:31] I see a picture online. I think it is of you and your dog. And I’m pretty sure I’m hearing
[00:29:38] a dog snore.
[00:29:40] Yeah, you absolutely are.
[00:29:44] And it’s 100% fine. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t doing something on my end.
[00:29:51] No, that is not a sort of a low frequency sort of weird glitch there. No, that is a snoring
[00:29:59] bulldog. Yeah.
[00:30:01] I just wanted to make sure.
[00:30:03] That’s excellent.
[00:30:03] We’re good. All right. So continue on how you, on this, a higher end conversation.
[00:30:10] Yeah. So, so…
[00:30:14] I guess for, I’ll sort of, I guess I’ll set the stage. So atomic design in general for the
[00:30:20] uninitiated, I guess, is a, is sort of a methodology or sort of a mental model for how
[00:30:27] to think of user interfaces as sort of deconstructing user interfaces into a few
[00:30:35] different stages, basically, like in nature, atoms combine to form molecules, which combine
[00:30:41] further to form organisms, right? More combinations.
[00:30:44] More complex objects and which combine further and so on and so forth. So we could apply that
[00:30:50] same sort of model to our UIs, right? Where we take a button in a, you know, form field. Those
[00:30:56] are sort of our atoms, right? And input and the buttons label. And then that’s sort of combined
[00:31:02] together into a relatively simple component that I dubbed it, you know, a molecule, right? So this
[00:31:08] relatively simple component that you can now chuck in anywhere you need.
[00:31:14] To include sort of like a form field, right? So a label can define an input. And then clicking a
[00:31:22] button will submit that form field for like a search form. So that’s like a search form molecule.
[00:31:27] And then that search form molecule exists in a more complex component, right? Something like a
[00:31:35] header is a place where you’ll see a search form. So that header is an organism, right? This more
[00:31:42] complex component.
[00:31:44] So it’s all components, but it’s like sort of relatively complex levels of components. And so
[00:31:51] that’s, that was sort of the, we’ll say the differentiating thing between, you know, what
[00:31:57] atomic design is versus these concepts that have been around for ages and ages. So that’s back to
[00:32:04] sort of, you know, how this came to be. It isn’t that I have invented anything new, far from it. I
[00:32:10] mean, modular, you know, object-oriented programming predates, you know, a lot of the
[00:32:14] web by a long shot, you know what I mean? But it’s just now, you know, in recent years has been
[00:32:21] sort of finding its way into sort of the front end of the pool, I guess, with things like bootstrap
[00:32:28] and foundation and stuff like that. And I’d been sort of working on sort of patterns. I was
[00:32:35] fortunate enough to get into responsive design sort of right at the ground level. I was working
[00:32:40] at an agency at the time as a mobile developer. And I was working at an agency at the time as a
[00:32:44] web developer in the sort of MDOT days, like pre, you know, the iPhone had just come out. I’d gotten
[00:32:51] this job that, and I was like a dedicated mobile web developer. And so, you know, I was fortunate
[00:32:59] enough, it was like sort of a big branding sort of agency or digital agency, but we’d work with
[00:33:05] like big brands like Nike and stuff. And so like I had the opportunity to work on like this new thing
[00:33:13] for this
[00:33:14] new device that Apple was putting out called the iPad, like before it was, you know, released. So
[00:33:19] it was, you know, we, that’s awesome. Yeah. So it was, it was like total, you know, when I talk
[00:33:23] about luck, it was like being at the right, right, you know, place at the right time and stuff. And,
[00:33:28] but in having to learn like how to make, you know, web experiences that worked on these,
[00:33:34] you know, these phones and this new thing called the Motorola Droid and stuff and,
[00:33:38] and the iPad. And so that’s sort of, you know, I was fortunate to,
[00:33:43] to get into that.
[00:33:44] And realizing that, oh, well, it’s not actually that everything’s hard. Like some of this stuff’s
[00:33:50] actually sort of, it’s easy to see how it’s going to scale from large to small and whatever.
[00:33:55] But, but this, these breadcrumbs or whatever, this pattern is, is particularly difficult to,
[00:34:02] to convert on small screens and large screens and everything in between, or, or this, this data
[00:34:08] table or something, or this navigation pattern, like how do we do that? And so I made a,
[00:34:14] a resource called, uh, this is responsive, which is a sort of collection of responsive design
[00:34:21] patterns, sort of like vanilla, uh, very sort of vanilla sort of patterns for like, here’s one way
[00:34:28] you can do, uh, a responsive breadcrumbs. Yeah, here’s, yeah, exactly. So, so that was cool. And
[00:34:34] that ended up working really well. So that’s sort of how I got into sort of thinking about patterns
[00:34:39] and just in general, where it’s like, okay, like we can sort of break these things down a little bit.
[00:34:44] Um, and, and sort of fiddle with them on their own. Um, and at the time around that time, uh, you
[00:34:52] know, bootstrap had come out and, uh, uh, you know, some organizations have started launching
[00:34:58] large scale responsive, uh, redesigns and Starbucks was sort of the first one that released alongside
[00:35:06] their new shiny website, the pattern library that, that made that up. Uh, so it’s like,
[00:35:12] here’s some of the patterns that we’re,
[00:35:14] we’re using to create, uh, the new starbucks.com. And that was awesome. I mean, that was like a,
[00:35:20] a big, you know, really pivotal moment. Of course, more and more people started coming out with this
[00:35:26] stuff and I absolutely loved it as somebody that was, you know, sort of working in that area and
[00:35:33] stuff. And, you know, I dove head first into it. And I guess like where atomic design came from
[00:35:39] is that I was, I was a little bit frustrated just because it was like, okay. And, and this,
[00:35:44] this is still the case with things like bootstrap and foundation and, uh, really any sort of UI
[00:35:49] toolkit where it’s like, here’s, here’s the ingredients. And then it’s like ingredients,
[00:35:55] question mark in the middle, final pages. And it was like, it was like, duh, you just put them
[00:36:01] together. And then it’s like, well, yeah, but like, but how exactly? And so that’s where sort
[00:36:06] of atomic design adds sort of like a couple, you know, steps in between that allows you to sort of,
[00:36:12] you know, traverse between,
[00:36:14] you know, here’s this button in the abstract versus, you know, and then we’re able to put
[00:36:19] that button into the context of this search form. And then we’re able to put the search form in the
[00:36:23] context of the header and then put the header in the context of the homepage and stuff like that.
[00:36:28] Right. So that by providing like those extra steps, it allows you to sort of, you know,
[00:36:34] paint the full picture and allows you to not just sort of go like, okay, cool. We got pages and we
[00:36:40] got components that make up those pages, uh, which has been the case in like,
[00:36:44] any, you know, any sort of like backend language or whatever you have, like an includes folder
[00:36:48] or whatever in your, in your CMS or whatever. But it’s like, this sort of takes it and stretches
[00:36:53] it out a little bit. And, and that helps teams work more effectively as I’ve found.
[00:36:58] Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting because, you know, this, this concept is,
[00:37:03] is kind of, uh, uh, being naturally discovered again, um, through things like react, for example,
[00:37:12] right? The, the,
[00:37:14] if you’re doing it, if you’re doing it the react way, at least, or, or the suggestive way,
[00:37:19] then you’re breaking things down into, you know, the smallest component, uh, ultimately
[00:37:24] following a lot of the principles of atomic design, whether you call it that or not.
[00:37:30] And it’s been pretty powerful in, in constructing, you know, these from, from the programmatic
[00:37:36] perspective or from the developer’s perspective, uh, it becomes a lot more, um, a lot easier to
[00:37:42] manage, you know, state and that kind of stuff. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
[00:37:44] so, so, you know, and we don’t praise react or any other particular thing on the show, but the
[00:37:51] concept of, of breaking things down into smaller parts and composing them, this is something that,
[00:37:57] you know, as you said, it’s, it’s not new, but it certainly is, uh, is important. Right. And,
[00:38:03] and we’re rediscovering new ways to apply this, this concept of composability.
[00:38:09] Yeah. Yeah. I think that that that’s really well said. And again, like it,
[00:38:14] it’s funny, you know, sort of being on like the front end of the equation and sort of, you know,
[00:38:19] I, I tend to see myself between sort of a bridge between the sort of design and development worlds.
[00:38:24] I’m not like a, you know, a programmer and stuff. And I’ve certainly not, you know,
[00:38:28] anyone who’s going to be like wowed by something, you know, a concept like this is not necessarily
[00:38:34] a developer just because it was like, well, yeah, this is how I’ve been, you know, making things
[00:38:38] for years and years. But even if you haven’t been sort of explicitly, uh, sort of, you know,
[00:38:44] calling it something or, or, you know, applying some sort of like deeper level aside from like,
[00:38:48] I have in my WordPress theme or whatever, it includes folder or something like that.
[00:38:54] Uh, but it is becoming more and more important because it sort of, I think why this is such
[00:39:01] like a hot topic now and why things like on the development side that, you know, things like
[00:39:06] react where it’s components all the way down and, you know, just at why everyone in all the design
[00:39:11] tools are talking about components and nested symbols.
[00:39:14] And stuff like that is, is because we have this plethora of devices and environments and screen
[00:39:24] sizes and capabilities. And like, basically our UIs need to go more places than ever. And we don’t
[00:39:31] have, we’re not tripling our budgets and our timelines and stuff like that. We’re not, we’re
[00:39:37] not, it’s not like, hang on, like now I need to reinvent this thing for, for this size sort of
[00:39:43] screen or whatever.
[00:39:44] So it’s like, we need to find efficiencies. And so that’s where I think a lot of this stuff,
[00:39:48] uh, is really coming in handy. And of course we’re under the gun to launch more features,
[00:39:54] more content, more, you know, stuff faster than ever before. And so, you know, you do,
[00:40:00] uh, once you solve a problem once you, you like to not have to solve it again and again and again.
[00:40:05] So, so I’m, I’m happy with how things have progressed over the last few years. And I’m,
[00:40:11] I’m extraordinarily, uh, encouraged.
[00:40:14] Certainly on like the sort of front end side of things and, you know, and on the design side of
[00:40:18] things, uh, that a lot of people have embraced these concepts and stuff. And of course on sort
[00:40:25] of the more to the metal, uh, sort of programmatic stuff, like it, it seems to, you know, seems to
[00:40:31] work out continue to evolve and stuff. Yeah. So, so it’s good. It’s, I think it’s, it’s really
[00:40:36] great, um, to see that stuff. And, uh, I’m again, I wish I was a better developer and I,
[00:40:44] I do need, I need to roll up my sleeves and sort of like get more in the weeds with things like
[00:40:49] react and angular and all that stuff. But like having, you know, sort of dealt with it as like
[00:40:53] a consultant. Yeah, absolutely. These things make sense. So it’s, it’s promising for sure.
[00:40:58] For sure. Yeah. I think, you know, a lot of this is really about language. Like, uh,
[00:41:03] dug up a tweet that you sent and you said, I consider a design system to be the collective
[00:41:08] guts, including components, guidelines, downloads, et cetera. And the style guide is what houses it
[00:41:13] all. And I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s
[00:41:14] And it’s interesting because we, we get into these, you know, it’s important to have these,
[00:41:19] these definitions that we share, um, between us and other people. And because the definition is
[00:41:26] the, is kind of like a heuristic that you can point back to. You have this, this component.
[00:41:31] The only reason the component is important is not because, you know, you didn’t have the code to go
[00:41:35] and pull out. It’s because you’ve contained it in something and you’ve given that thing a name,
[00:41:39] right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think sort of coming back to your, your previous,
[00:41:44] this question, and this is sort of the other direction I was going to go. And it’s like,
[00:41:47] there is something to a buzzword. There is something to, uh, to a name sort of it’s,
[00:41:54] it sounds gross a little bit, like things like branding and buzzwords and stuff typically have
[00:41:59] like negative connotations. I think a little bit, there is something to be able to encapsulate
[00:42:05] in a whole concept in two words. Uh, and again, like this stuff is nothing new and I’m certainly
[00:42:13] not trying to take credit for it. I’m not trying to take credit for it. I’m not trying to take
[00:42:13] credit for it. I’m not trying to take credit for it. I’m not trying to take credit for it.
[00:42:14] I’m not trying to take credit for like object oriented programming or, you know, object
[00:42:17] oriented designs or modular design and stuff. Again, these, these are old concepts or whatever,
[00:42:22] but for whatever unholy reason, like, you know, I was just, I was, you know, at the right time
[00:42:29] and the right, yeah, the, the right time and right place and like gave something a name.
[00:42:35] And this has happened with responsive design. This has happened with Ajax. This has happened
[00:42:39] with, you know, any number of, of technologies and stuff. But to be,
[00:42:44] to be able to have that shorthand to that, that nomenclature, to be able to say like
[00:42:49] the response to design. And even though responsive design by definition is three CSS concepts, uh,
[00:42:57] it, it grew and became synonymous with all that goes into making a great sort of multi-device
[00:43:03] web experience. And to be able to say responsive design, instead of having to say a paragraph of
[00:43:11] words that explains like why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why,
[00:43:13] designing for different screen sizes is important. Like that’s huge. That, that does, it helps us do
[00:43:21] work together. And, and again, so, so there is something to, to buzzwords, I guess, that, um,
[00:43:28] that can help sort of facilitate, you know, better, better work between teams, but it is,
[00:43:33] it does come down to figuring out like what the right words are for you and your team.
[00:43:40] Absolutely.
[00:43:41] The, the team at, uh, General Electric,
[00:43:43] wrote, uh, a post about how they sort of started with, uh, uh, atomic design as, as sort of a,
[00:43:51] you know, uh, a nomenclature, I guess. And, you know, sort of struggled with it. Like they found
[00:43:56] themselves tripping up over the, over the, the names that I had sort of like laid out and that’s,
[00:44:01] and, and they ended up sort of taking it and sort of modifying the language to, to work for their
[00:44:06] team. And, you know, the, the, the article itself had a bit of stank on it or whatever, but like,
[00:44:11] but like the spirit of it, I was like, yeah,
[00:44:13] absolutely. Like this is, yeah, this is, this is what it’s about. This is about, you know,
[00:44:18] design systems in general. It’s like, this is like, you know, define the language,
[00:44:24] define the principles, define the tools and, and sort of, you know, syntax and whatever
[00:44:29] that works for your team. And that’s going to allow you to do good work together. And,
[00:44:35] you know, it’s, it’s not going to be the same at a different place and that’s okay.
[00:44:40] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it’s, it is interesting because,
[00:44:43] you know, when we have a shared language, so we can do a word study here for a second or like a,
[00:44:50] a linguistic study. So much of, of what we do in our jobs really is just simply communication.
[00:44:57] That’s what code is. It’s me communicating to other developers, you know, some kind of
[00:45:02] specification for what they’re seeing. And so, um, at least on the front end, that’s what it is.
[00:45:07] So if I rewind my life back to when I was five or six years old, if I heard the word unicorn,
[00:45:12] it meant something.
[00:45:13] It meant something to me then, right? That it doesn’t mean to me today, or at least it means
[00:45:17] something entirely different to me today because we have this shared like pointer, right? We took
[00:45:23] this concept and, and we, we put, we, we layered on new information. We layered on more on top of
[00:45:31] that. And it’s a cultural thing. We have to understand how much, uh, how much weight our
[00:45:36] culture puts on language and it’s going to carry into, uh, into subcultures. Like for example,
[00:45:43] front end web developers, we have a subculture, we have a shared language and, you know, our culture,
[00:45:48] for example, uh, in, in, you know, a thousand BC, uh, the, the city of Rome, I believe I’m going to
[00:45:57] get my history wrong. Didn’t exist. Right. So, um, after that, now we point, we point to Rome as
[00:46:04] the cradle of civilization. So when somebody says Rome, all of these thoughts are conjured up and
[00:46:09] all this information is carried with this one syllable word.
[00:46:13] That hasn’t always been there. It’s not like inherent in that word and we layer on top of it.
[00:46:19] So that’s why I think these buzzwords are so important. They provide us with
[00:46:24] so much meaning and connotation and, uh, we shouldn’t just discount them because we hear
[00:46:30] them often. Right. Yeah. No, I think, I think that’s totally true. And, and again, like
[00:46:35] the, the negative connotations around certain words and stuff, just Ajax and stuff, you know,
[00:46:42] again,
[00:46:43] as, as a great example of like something that was like sort of scoffed at. And whenever you sort of
[00:46:49] read articles on like Forbes.com or whatever, that like mentioned, you know, sort of certain
[00:46:55] trends that, that, that stuff is always my favorite, you know, like as a, I, I do a lot
[00:47:01] of consulting. So I’ll go in and talk to a bunch of companies and give talks and workshops and
[00:47:06] whatever. And it’s so funny to, you know, walk into a place and, and say certain words.
[00:47:13] Uh, mobile first is another one. That’s a, that I love, uh, cause it’s like you, you read,
[00:47:19] you read some like sort of Forbes article about what mobile first means or wall street journal
[00:47:24] talking about mobile first. And then you sort of, you know, hear a developer talk about mobile
[00:47:29] first. Uh, it’s like, what a, what a funny, what a funny, what a funny, just sort of experience
[00:47:37] hearing. We almost get territorial over it. Right. Yeah. Well, and that’s, and that’s where it’s a
[00:47:41] lot of fun. Like for me, like, I’m like, I’m like, I’m like, I’m like, I’m like, I’m like, I’m like,
[00:47:43] you know, going into, to talk, talk at all these companies, like I would be like mobile first and
[00:47:48] let’s sort of like, here’s what that means. And here’s sort of the different ways it’s,
[00:47:52] it’s construed by different sort of parts of the organization or whatever. Um, and I always have
[00:47:57] people come up afterwards and they’re like, Oh, thank you so much. Like I’ve been, I’ve been
[00:48:02] arguing with my boss over this for weeks and weeks. And it’s because, you know, somebody,
[00:48:07] you know, uh, the designer is reading a list apart and, uh, you know, the,
[00:48:12] the CTO or a CMO or whatever is reading, you know, Forbes and the developer is, is reading,
[00:48:21] uh, uh, Y Combinator. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so I don’t know. I, again, yeah, words,
[00:48:29] words and symbols and stuff are, are really interesting and, and you’re totally right.
[00:48:33] Cultural, cultural things. So, and it, and I’d say that, you know, a big part of my job now is
[00:48:39] sort of helping organizations with that, like helping sort of define,
[00:48:42] that culture. It’s like you have a choice, uh, you know, you have, you have a say in what you want
[00:48:50] atomic design or mobile first or responsive design to, to mean to you all. So long as you all have
[00:48:56] the same definition of it and you’re able to sort of act, if someone says atomic design,
[00:49:02] and even if it’s something totally at odds with what I’ve put out and I’ve, I’ve been at those
[00:49:08] places and stuff, so long as it works for you, like there’s not an issue.
[00:49:12] You know what I mean? It’s like, so long as you’re able to collectively establish,
[00:49:19] you know, sort of shared value, shared language and stuff, you’re in, and are able to do good
[00:49:24] work as a result. Um, you know, you could call things like crazy names and yeah, sure. So why
[00:49:31] not? Yeah. So I don’t know. Nesting dolls or something. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, uh, it
[00:49:38] is fascinating though, to see it all play out. And like, uh, there was a sort of another,
[00:49:42] one that sort of pre atomic design, um, sort of without, I’ll spare you the story, but the, the,
[00:49:51] the concept of being future friendly, uh, was sort of like another buzzword that I was partially,
[00:49:57] partially involved with. But again, it was like aggressive enhancement. Yeah, exactly. It’s like
[00:50:02] to be able to say a couple words and encapsulate like a, a whole lot of other words, I think is
[00:50:08] really powerful and important.
[00:50:12] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer tea. Uh, we’re going to
[00:50:16] follow up on this discussion on the power of words and the importance of language. And I’m
[00:50:21] going to have a kind of a homework assignment for you in the next episode. If you don’t want
[00:50:25] to miss out on that episode, then today’s homework assignment would be to subscribe
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[00:50:41] One that you will actually
[00:50:42] check. Uh, and you’ll get that weekly email. Thank you so much for listening. And until next
[00:50:46] time, enjoy your tea.