White space is not wasted space. It's one of the most powerful tools in your design arsenal. Give your elements room to breathe, and your users' eyes will thank you. Cramming everything together creates visual chaos and cognitive overload.
Performance is a feature, not an afterthought. A beautiful website that loads in eight seconds is a failed website. Optimize images, lazy load resources, and remember that every kilobyte counts on mobile networks.
Typography creates hierarchy before color ever enters the conversation. Font size, weight, and spacing communicate importance more effectively than any color scheme. Get the type right first.
Mobile-first isn't just a buzzword—it's a constraint that forces better decisions. When you design for the smallest screen first, you prioritize ruthlessly. Scaling up is always easier than cramming down.
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CSS Custom Properties are a game-changer for theming and responsive design. Unlike Sass variables, they update in real-time and can be manipulated with JavaScript. Use them for everything from colors to spacing scales.
Icons need labels more often than you think. That hamburger menu, those cryptic symbols—they're only obvious to you. Text is the most accessible interface.
User research isn't optional, even for side projects. Five user tests will reveal more problems than five hundred hours of solo deliberation. Watch people use your work—it's humbling and illuminating.
Accessibility isn't a checklist—it's a mindset. Every design decision either includes or excludes someone. Contrast ratios, focus states, and semantic HTML aren't nice-to-haves; they're fundamentals.
The cascade in CSS is a feature, not a bug. Fighting against specificity with !important declarations is like fighting gravity with duct tape. Work with the cascade, understand it, and your stylesheets will be cleaner.
Your design system should be a living document, not a PDF that lives in a forgotten Dropbox folder. Build it in code, maintain it with your team, and let it evolve with your product.
Animation should have purpose, not just presence. Every transition and keyframe should either provide feedback, guide attention, or enhance understanding. Gratuitous animation is visual noise.
Color theory matters more than color trends. Understanding complementary, analogous, and triadic relationships will serve you longer than memorizing this year's Pantone picks. Master the fundamentals.
Semantic HTML is the foundation of everything else. Before you reach for a <div>, ask if there's a more meaningful element. Screen readers, search engines, and future developers will all benefit from your restraint.
CSS positioning isn't just absolute and relative. Sticky positioning creates magical scroll effects, and logical properties prepare your layouts for internationalization. Explore beyond the basics.
Your design tools are just that—tools. Figma won't make you a better designer any more than a expensive camera makes you a photographer. Focus on principles, not software features.
Component thinking transforms how you approach design and development. When you see patterns instead of pages, you build systems instead of sites. This shift in perspective is career-changing.
Loading states are part of the user experience, not technical debt. Skeleton screens, progress indicators, and optimistic updates show users that something is happening. Never leave them wondering.
CSS nesting is now native. No preprocessor needed. But just because you can nest doesn't mean you should create seven-level specificity nightmares. Flat is often better.
Design isn't decoration—it's problem-solving with aesthetic constraints. Every color choice, spacing decision, and component variant should serve user needs, not just look pretty in a portfolio.
Browser DevTools are your X-ray vision. Learn to inspect computed styles, debug layout issues with Grid/Flexbox tools, and use the Performance tab. The browser tells you everything if you know how to listen.
CSS Grid and Flexbox aren't competing technologies—they're complementary. Use Grid for two-dimensional layouts and Flexbox for one-dimensional arrangements. Master both, and you'll solve layout problems in minutes instead of hours.