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Open Source Contributions
Giving back to the community…
We use open source software regularly in our personal and professional work, to stay up-to-date with community best practice and avoid re-inventing any wheels. We appreciate the generosity of so many in the open source community, and try to contribute back to the projects we use, and share our own tools that might be useful to others.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are the design language of the web – allowing authors and users to attach style (fonts, spacing, filter effects, style animations, and more) to structured documents and Web applications. Miriam is a W3C Invited Expert on the CSS Working Group, helping to develop the next level of Cascading & Inheritance, in addition to other CSS standards. Miriam is also active in the CSS4 and Design Token Community Groups.
Sass is the most mature and powerful professional-grade CSS extension language in the world. It allows you to use variables, nested rules, mixins, functions, and more, all with a fully CSS-compatible syntax. Sass helps keep large stylesheets well-organized and makes it easy to share design within and across projects. Over the years, Sass has become an industry-standard for developers, and a testing ground for new features that eventually land in CSS.
Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Built by experienced developers, it takes care of much of the hassle of Web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to reinvent the wheel.
Design systems streamline development, communication, and consistency – but often rely on dedicated teams and extended budgets. We wanted a tool that helps create and maintain living style guides & pattern libraries in an agile process, and on a budget. Herman helps you keep your development process simple – and your UX consistent – as you iterate on patterns and scale over time.
Start using Herman or hire us for design systems training.
Herman is my documentation dream come true, especially when it comes to systems design.
True is a full-featured unit-testing library for Sass. The core functionality is written in pure SassScript, so it can be used anywhere Sass is compiled. Advanced features are available with our test-runner integration and Mocha.
OddBird’s Accoutrement tools (now merged into a single npm package) are designed around the idea that design systems should be meaningful to both humans and machines – opening the door for automation, while improving readability. These tools integrate with Herman, our automated pattern-library generator.
CSS Color Modules Level 4 & Level 5 include several new CSS color formats, new color-adjustment syntax, and a contrast function. Blend provides early access to many of these features, while working with Sass colors.
Generate dynamic and interactive color palettes using CSS custom properties. Define multiple themes, allow user-adjustments with a bit of light-weight JS, and customize the underlying system with Sass.
Susy is a lightweight grid-layout engine for Sass, designed to simplify and clarify responsive grid layouts without ever getting in your way. You can use Susy with floats, flexbox, tables, or any other CSS technique. You’re the expert, we’re just here to make your job easier.
I like the idea of grids-on-demand, rather than a strict framework.
My experiments have left me impressed. The current state of CSS layout means that unless you like to spend a lot of time doing calculations something like Susy is really useful. The output CSS is pretty much what I’d come up with myself, which to me is the acid test for tool use.
A powerful markup templating language with block inheritance, autoescaping, macros, asynchronous control, and more. Heavily inspired by Jinja2, Nunjucks is fast, lean, highly performant, and extensible.
A tool for creating isolated ‘virtual’ python environments.
The PyPA recommended tool for installing Python packages.
An open source CSS authoring framework which uses the Sass language to make writing and sharing stylesheets powerful and easy. Compass was the first package-manager and toolkit-sharing platform for CSS, helping popularize the Sass language – and offering powerful browser-compatability tools that changed the landscape for designers developers.
Ask us anything. We want to answer your questions, and get to know you – your needs, goals, and expertise – so we can provide thoughtful advice, and help guide you to a successful launch of your web project.
Schedule a call with Miriam