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Here at S8, annual leave is a biggie. Everyone gets 28 days to cash in whenever they like. Plus, local bank holidays, a long Christmas shutdown, and extra days for our team retreat. Here’s why we think more time OOO is the way to go.

As a fully remote agency, WFH is all we know. But when you work from home, it’s even more important to get that work-life balance down. Your workplace doubles as a place for downtime. And although we’re big on flexible working – and choosing when, where and how we work best – it’s still important to step away from the desk and fully disconnect. Because with regular breathers come fewer burnouts and big productivity boosts.

Different locations mean different bank holidays

The fact we’re based in different countries means we all benefit from different bank holiday dates. Although we all get roughly the same number (except for lucky Biel in Barca), having that extra annual leave means we can celebrate our home country’s traditions the way we want to. Tag extra days onto already long weekends, travel to meet family during big festivities like Easter, or (if you’re based in the UK) turn the month of May into one big holiday.

A bigger holiday allowance means more flexibility when it comes to taking time off. Instead of weighing up whether to take time off at Christmas or squeeze in a last-minute summer getaway (especially if you’re holding out for great British weather) – you can do both. Plus, more holiday to spend means more time to really disconnect (or just get over the jetlag) and come back to your desk fully refreshed on Monday.

We all know that weird period between Christmas and New Year. You have no idea what day it is – or what the heck you should be doing. But in our book, the last thing on our minds should be work. That’s why we give ourselves two wonderful weeks to switch off, hit reset, and simply celebrate the holidays however we want to. It’s the best way to reflect on the year and come back with a brand-new focus for the year ahead.

Because there’s a whole world out there

We love what we do – partly because of what it enables us to do. Visit new places, experience new things, tackle house renovations, or just go hard on our hobbies. Those extra days of annual leave mean we can take time out for what’s really important. Plus, it means more travel/foodie/DIY tips for the rest of us.

Why our holiday allowance is hefty

Back to the journal

Shopify's Summer '23 Editions is here – and there’s some pretty major announcements on the development front. Our Lead Dev, Alistair, outlines the biggest and best of this latest feature drop.

Bundles have always been something that is annoying to do on Shopify. We could build the functionality ourselves, but it took a surprisingly large amount of work. The alternative? Pay for a third-party app which adds additional dependencies and complexity to the site.

Now Shopify has implemented its own 'official' bundle system. It's only 'fixed' bundles at the moment, which means store owners need to specify exactly which products are in the bundle. But we're hoping that 'flexible' bundles — where a customer can pick which products they'd like — are added soon!

This one is huge! We've been working with subscriptions apps for a long time and the addition of an official integration will really shake the scene. Subscriptions are a core part of loads of businesses and we're all really excited to see how this could streamline and simplify subscription management.

The official app looks pretty simple compared to the big apps – and for a really well-optimised or custom setup, they'll still be the best option for a long time at least. But, for simple setups, Shopify’s new app looks ideal and will definitely open up subscriptions to more stores.

'Duplicating' a store has previously been pretty hard. We actually built our own internal tools to make it easier to spin up a staging store or to create a new store for a multi-currency setup.

Now when you create a new store, you have the option to copy your product catalogue, files and themes to the new store. Super handy for development and if you need multiple stores that are similar!

This is a really interesting and easy way to sell products from other brands in your store  – or, become a supplier yourself. You can choose a product from another company, add it to your store, and when someone purchases it, they handle the order, shipping and process for you!

Most exciting for me though is that you can do both! I love the idea of a group of stores with similar products 'teaming up' as suppliers and retailers to give customers the best possible purchasing experience.

So this might sound like the most boring sounding feature to come out of this Editions, but it's actually got us developers jumping for joy.

The previous limit of 100 variants sounds high, but it’s actually easily reached. I once built a clothing store that sold a specific jumper in Loose and Slim fit, in 6 different sizes and 10 different colours. That’s 120 variants.

So, the upcoming increase to 250 variants will make it much easier to build products with lots of options.

Customising content across B2B and Markets

Only a few weeks ago, a couple of our developers were wishing for this exact feature! Clearly someone at Shopify somehow got the message!

Shopify has added a 'context switcher' to the theme customiser, allowing store owners to change the content of the site depending on the customer’s Market (based on their location) or if they're a B2B/Wholesaler. You had a bit of control previously using Localisation, but it was pretty difficult to use, particularly with sections and blocks. Now if you need to change the content, images, products on display or anything else in the customiser per country or currency, it's as simple as going to that dropdown.

It'll be interesting to dig into how this feels to use, as it looks like it might be pretty easy to get confused about which context you're editing. Hopefully it's really clear and Shopify adds features to sync changes to make it easier to manage.

During the Shopify Editions Winter '23, I voiced our concerns about the deprecation of checkout.liquid and how Checkout Extensions didn't have all the functionality we needed. This is a definite step in the right direction from Shopify, giving a clear route forward for upsells and recommendations on the checkout page which were uncertain until now.

Similar to upsells, there were features we'd been relying on checkout.liquid for that there were no clear replacements for. Shopify has made it easier for developers to add or change the validation rules within the checkout. A regular request we get for the checkout is preventing users from shipping to PO boxes. Until now, the best we could do was add a warning banner above the address input for all users –  but still allow orders to PO boxes anyway. With these new validation rules, we can prevent checking out with a PO box and give the user more direct feedback that their address is invalid.

The editor experience on Shopify has been a constant bugbear of ours. It's not bad, but when you have a large site with lots of flexible JSON templates and sections, it can get really confusing. On some of those projects we've even gone to the extent of creating a 'cheatsheet' of screenshots of each section to help.

From a first look, Section previews looks like it will make managing sections a lot easier. There hasn't been much detail over how it actually works, is it automatically-generated? Or do we upload screenshots when we make our sections like we have to with other CMSs? It'll be interesting to see when it rolls out.

Flex sections look like they could be a huge addition, allowing editors to drag+drop blocks in a page more easily. The real proof will be when we can see how it's implemented – plus, how useful it is for third-party themes that aren't based on Dawn.

Sidekick seems really powerful and a great time-saver – particularly for store admins that just want to get the information they need and move on. In terms of finding information about your store and Shopify, it seems super handy.

Like many AI tools however, make sure you keep an eye on its output. We've seen Sidekick returning information about Shopify that is completely incorrect, and breaking themes when instructed to make code changes. Hopefully these will be ironed out, but it's worth being a little cautious with this one!

Shopify Flow is an automation tool that allows you to automate actions in your store with simple If-This-Then-That style rules. It's been available for a long time on Shopify Plus, but now it's available on all plans. Nice!

Metaobjects were the big star of Editions Winter ‘23, and we've been loving them since their release. Metaobjects make it so much easier to build advanced CMS setups that are still really easy to manage and edit. During our first development call after their announcement, we talked about our disappointment that they could only be used on existing pages and products, not be given their own URLs and Templates.

Once again Shopify listened! Metaobjects can now have their own URLs, allowing us to take that same advanced CMS setup onto the frontend of the site like many other full-on CMSs. Previously for a site with an event system, we'd be building that part on a different platform or by re-using blogs. But now we can build that system right into metaobjects in a way that makes more sense, works better for SEO and is so much easier to manage!

I'm really excited about this feature and looking forward to seeing what our team can do with it!

Klaviyo is a standard recommendation for our stores, providing really helpful and advanced email+SMS flows. We use them to help engage with customers and do effective email marketing. It’s the bread and butter of our sister agency Parallel 9.

That's why we're really interested in Shopify stepping up their digital marketing game with Marketing Tools, providing flows and templates that might just rival Klaviyo's at some point. They currently seem a little simple. But, for smaller stores with less complex marketing needs, they could do the job and keep everything nicely within the Shopify platform. Definitely one we've got our eye on!

Shopify Summer ‘23 Editions: first impressions and best additions

We’re rounding off our 5-part accessibility in design series with 

: how best to approach movement and animation on your website – and what not to do if you want to make sure it passes the WCAG’s AA accessibility testing.

First up, is motion bad for accessibility?

Believe it or not, a video background is actually a lot more accessible than a static image. Why? Because the motion allows users with accessibility needs to clearly differentiate the static content from the moving content – and that, friends, makes it much more legible.

You see this kind of format on common streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, ITVX and iPlayer. The sites play trailers in the background of the hero – sometimes with shadows and overlays to help the text stand out more. For a refresher on colour contrasts and backgrounds, visit our 

How to make your movement and motion accessible

On the average website, motion makes up 20% of the user experience. It’s known to  increase interactions and sales on some sites, but that doesn’t mean everything should move. Overdoing it can result in really bad drop-offs and just frustrate users – so approach it with caution.

Guidance from the WCAG states that anything with motion on a website, whether it be a simple transition, video content or a gif, should never flash more than three times. Not only is it pretty distracting, but too much flashing can be harmful to users with accessibility needs.

Some accessible users might experience anxiety as well as vision impairments. This is why it’s so important not to bombard your users by causing everything to move at once. Time things intelligently – and don’t trigger anything too crazy at a point where they might be reading some important copy.

Accessibility in design - Motion

In this blog series, we’re unpacking all the vital areas of accessibility in design. It’s been a legal requirement since 2017 for websites to meet the AA criteria outlined by W3C – the global community that believes in a web for all of us – on anything.

 – something that’s super important not just from an accessibility standpoint, but for general usability, too.

We all know how important first impressions are. But put this in the context of a user’s first interaction with your brand, and the stakes just got higher. And that just goes for those that don’t have accessibility needs.

The snap decisions that a user makes could be the difference between them trusting, buying or even engaging with you or not. And when you strip away all the other elements of your brand and are left with just the plain-text format of a screen reader, you can see why it’s so essential for your content to be structured as intelligently and logically as possible.

Let’s take product descriptions, for example. The goal is to draw your readers in, build trust, and encourage them to convert. Do we talk about features first? Or should we start with product names? Navigating a page with a screen reader means your content will be presented in the order it’s positioned, so it’s important to get it right.

If they’re using a screen reader, the user will see the name of the product first. This means they may not know what they’re looking at.

A screen reader would tell this user what the product is before talking about its features. Visually, it feels much more desirable to non-accessible users, too.

Your path to purchase should be suitable for all users – both the skimmers and the in-depth readers. And the fact that this is your primary CTA should also be reflected in your content hierarchy.

But we’re not just talking preheadings, headings, and sections on the page. Your button hierarchy is important, too. Think about users that could be browsing through your site and trying to quickly find a contact or “buy” button – only to find all the CTAs look the same.

As a general rule of thumb, make sure no two CTAs in the same port follow the same styling. This makes navigating your content, and committing to a call to action, much easier for the user.

Accessibility in design - Content hierarchy

If you’ve already been following our accessibility in design series, you’ll know that we’ve so far covered colour testing, typography and legibility. And if you’re new here; welcome.

This time round, we’re chatting about the impact of 

 on accessibility. As many as 20% of audiences worldwide require some kind of accessibility in the digital world – and so we’ll talk you through how we make sure our UI elements meet the W3C’s minimum AA standards.

Why are sizing, spacing and states important for accessibility?

Short answer: all three are key to usability. The spacing, sizing and overall alignment of your UI elements play a huge part in how your users interact with elements and differentiate between page content.

States are the visual representations we use to communicate the status of a component or interactive element.

States allows all users to navigate through your website without the use of a mouse and only a keyboard. If you’ve ever tabbed your way through a website, the visual representation you see to demonstrate the element you are on is a focus state.

And when it comes to accessibility, you may have users that simply don’t have access to a mouse – or, you could have audiences that aren’t able to use a mouse at all. That’s why states matter.

Here are some examples of elements and their states.

The holy grail of grid systems. In web design, the sizing and spacing of every UI element should be in increments of 8px. Why? Because not only will your designs convert seamlessly to rems (for development), but it makes designing for different screen sizes super simple. Every viewport is an increment of 8px, so every element within a page follows the same rule and gives you the best responsive results.

A couple of tips when it comes to spacing.

It’s important to make sure all of your UI elements that follow the 8px grid system have enough spacing so that accessible users can clearly differentiate and identify content.

Between 24-40px is a good range of padding to have within your containers or spacing between elements so that they are visually different to users with visual impairments.

All of your interactive elements should be accessible to see, click or touch.

As a general rule, these elements should be no smaller in width or height than 40px – the average size of a touch point on touch screen device, and therefore the size that’s most finger-friendly.

Accessibility in design - UI states, spacing and sizing

Next up in our accessibility in design series, we’re talking 

Our last post covered all things colour testing, from contrast to psychological connotations. And now it’s the turn of fonts, sizes, and characters to be scrutinised by the W3C’s AA accessibility standards.

Here’s how we tackle everything from accessible font styles to legibility as part of our ongoing mission to build a better internet.

The AA accessibility standards set by the WCAG are a legal requirement in the UK and Europe. Over 2 billion people live with a disability that we need to consider when designing user interfaces – and font size is just one area we need to look at.

Your average headline is always going to be larger. Similar to a traditional eye test, the larger the font the more legible it is to the reader.

Body copy should remain the same on mobile and desktop devices. This size is the most common across the web. Research also shows it’s the most accessible size for users to read.

Similar to body copy, button text should always follow the same sizing or larger.

Smaller, less important pieces of text such as legal footer terms and image captions are the only reason that font sizes should be below 14px.

Here’s how accessible font styles might look based on an 8px grid system

When it comes to accessibility, using the right sizes of fonts isn’t enough.

Yes, size matters – but it’s important to always do quick checks to test the legibility of the font itself. Why? Although it might sound crazy, not all typefaces are created with legibility as a primary design function. Many fonts are designed to create a typographic statement or instil a particular feeling. And some typefaces are just designed to stand out from the crowd.

Some typefaces have letterform designs that are virtually identical for multiple letters. Here’s the number 1, upper case “i”, symbol “|” and upper case L in Gill Sans to show you what we’re talking about.

Try to choose a typeface or font with distinct features on both the top and/or the bottom of the capital 'L' and a short but noticeable arm on the top of the number “1”.

All sighted young children horizontally flip letters as part of their early neurological development. At around six years old, this neurological trait usually resolves itself as part of ongoing physiological development. But, in extremely rare occasions, the mirroring effect may also be reintroduced following some types of brain trauma.

D and b, or q and p, should be obviously unique in shape and have no ambiguous characteristics. But believe it or not, as many as 90% of fonts do have similar traits, and it’s something that often isn’t considered enough in the font’s design.

For those of us with more severe vision impairments, the characters o, c, e or a can be easily confused. And that, in turn, can make some words harder to identify.

If the shapes are too closed, have tight apertures, or their counters are too small, they can start looking very similar. On the flip side, more open counters within the letterforms can help emphasise the unique shape – and that means better legibility.

Similar shapes can sometimes be resolved with more letter spacing. Play around with spacing and see how it improves things.

Like similar shapes, other elements that can impact character recognition are heights and ascenders. Check out the example of Figtree vs. Work Sans:

Raising your ascenders and incorporating other features will do wonders for legibility. As a general rule, there should be a visible difference between the capital height and ascenders.

Accessibility in design - Typography and legibility

Accessibility has always been embedded in the agency. But with research showing that the internet may not be as inclusive as we want it to be, our mission will always be to ensure we’re doing everything we can to create exceptional experiences for everyone

In a recent Lunch + Learn, our Design Director, Simon, talked us all through the ins and outs of web accessibility. And in this 5-part journal series, we’ll cover the key elements required to meet the minimum AA web accessibility standards set by the W3C (a community founded by the inventor of the World Wide Web himself, Tim Berners-Lee).

First up – we’re tackling all things 

As many as 217 million people worldwide have a moderate to severe vision impairment, with this number expected to rise to 588 million by 2050. But we’re not just talking about low vision or colour blindness. We should be designing for dyslexia, autism, anxiety and many more conditions, too.

And this, friends, is why colour testing is so important.

Colour contrast plays a huge part in legibility. It’s the difference in lightness/darkness between a font (or anything in the foreground) and its background.

And when it comes to web accessibility, how well one colour stands out from another colour determines whether or not most people will be able to read the information.

Which elements does a colour contrast apply to?

In UI design, the minimum requirements set by WCAG for colour contrast have to be followed for anything that a user has to read or interact with. And by that, we mean:

Carousel arrows, pagination, filters etc.

Any written content that appears on a website

The legal requirements aren’t as strict when it comes to branded elements like graphics or illustrations. If a user doesn’t have to read or interact with them, and they’re more of a brand aesthetic, then meeting the WCAG accessibility standards isn’t 

. But – if we’re talking about elements like infographics, or illustrations that are key to telling a brand’s story, then we’d always recommend following best practice.

Connotations with colours for web accessibility

There’s a psychological impact on colour choices for web accessibility, especially for people with visual impairments.

For example, red is psychologically negative, so using this for key user journeys and CTAs may impact how users interact with your website.

Green is seen as positive and progressive, so this may entice your user to click a CTA, or add anxiety if they feel they’re committing to something by clicking this.

What’s the best way to test colour contrast?

Luckily, the internet’s made it easy for us to test for colour contrast. From Figma plugins to website widgets, here’s our pick of the best tools of the trade:

What’s the AA rules for normal text vs. large text?

In some cases, colour contrast isn’t always so clear cut. Your design may fail the AA’s minimum requirements for normal text, but pass for large text. So while you can’t use the colour combination for body copy, it’s safe to use on headlines.

But – it’s a risky one. So to avoid clients running into any trouble in the future, it’s much easier to go by the rule of: if it doesn’t pass for normal and large, don’t use it. Simple!

Make sure the text used on top of the background passes the test. Light colours on top of dark are more likely to pass AA testing than colours from the same shade or spectrum.

The same colour contrast rule also applies for gradients. However, all colours combined within the gradient have to pass accessible colour contrast with the colour you want to use on top of it.

In the case of image tones, what works for one image won’t always work for another. Be sure to add shadows or overlays to images that need to have text or interactions applied on top of them to give the right contrast.

It’s worth bearing in mind that images will change once the site is live, so all image type components should be made safe so that no matter what image gets thrown in, it always looks great.

Accessibility in design - Colour testing

Shopify dropped its Winter ‘23 Editions a couple of months back. And this latest release has given us devs plenty to play around with. Here’s our verdict on Shopify’s Winter ‘23 updates, including our pick of the biggest game-changers.

Checkout Extensions (and further checkout changes on the horizon)

Up until now, any stores on Shopify Plus have been able to customise the checkout.liquid template for their store. We’ve used this for analytics, style and appearance changes, integrations with third-party systems, upsell or recommendation apps, and more.

However, Shopify has announced that its new Checkout Extensions will soon replace checkout.liquid completely. This will allow stores to customise the checkout whilst still ensuring a top level of security for customers. It’s great that Shopify is investing into protecting and enhancing security, but the future of checkout customisations now looks pretty uncertain.

Checkout Extensions don’t provide anywhere near the level of customisation of checkout.liquid changes, and they can be a lot more difficult to work with. Some of the checkout changes we’ve made seem unlikely to be possible with Checkout Extensions and lots of the apps that handle checkout customisations don’t currently support them.

Summary: Too soon to tell. Checkout.liquid has until mid-2024 until it’ll stop working, so we’ll be carefully keeping an eye on any additions or changes to Checkout Extensions in the meantime!

Shopify offers a fantastic product and order management system, but its content management has often been playing catch up with other platforms. It works well enough for simple websites, but more complex stores can be a bit tricky.

We’ve become very well practised in coming up with creative solutions to solve some of Shopify’s limitations, but that all seems to be changing thanks to Meta Objects! These new additions allow developers to create arbitrary ‘groups’ of content fields, massively increasing the potential of content management within Shopify.

We’ve been playing with Meta Objects for a couple of months now on new and old projects and only scratched the surface. We can already tell that they are such a huge deal for Shopify development. Designs, integrations and customisations that previously took tonnes of development time or expensive apps can now be done in a fraction of the time.

They also make content management a lot easier, allowing us to keep content management all in one place and more easily change one-off unique content on Collections, Products, Pages and Articles.

Summary: Shopify hit it out of the park with this one. A year from now we’ll wonder how we got on without them!

Verdict: the supercharged sidekick to Meta Objects

It may not have had the same groundbreaking impact as Meta Objects, but the many minor additions and improvements to metafields and the customiser over the past year have made a meaningful difference.

Collection and mixed reference metafields

Dynamic values from Store settings in customiser

Increasing limits of blocks and sections in JSON templates

Video field in customiser, allowing uploading a video file directly

And I’m sure there’s many more that I’ve missed! Together all of these help us deliver websites that are becoming easier and easier for our clients to manage. As if that wasn’t good enough already, many of these improvements also make Meta Objects even more powerful!

Summary: All in all, great changes for developers and content editors.

Verdict: a must-have for hassle-free international shipping

 and we’re very much fans of how it makes managing a store across multiple countries so much easier. But as a store owner, you’re still left managing some of the difficult stuff such as international tax, fulfilment, shipping and import restrictions.

Markets Pro is a more full-featured tool to help your business operate globally. It helps with cross-border shipping and fulfilment and international tax filing. It also displays different options for local payment options and currencies, and automatically ensures users only see the products they can receive.

It’s still in early-access and for US stores only at the moment, so we’re still exploring what it can do for our clients, but we’re excited to see how it can make managing an international e-commerce store easier!

Summary: International ecommerce becomes a lot easier – well worth a look for international fulfilment alone!

Verdict: a no-brainer if you’re big enough

There are a whole bunch of additions to Shopify B2B for Plus that make what was already a great solution for wholesale even better. We 

mentioned it when it first launched last year

 and although we hadn’t run into any major limitations, there was definitely a lack of flexibility compared to some other B2B/Wholesale solutions.

Shopify have done a lot of work to reduce those limitations and add more flexibility, including:

Native quantity rules like max or minimum quantities

Website and backend flexibility with metafields on companies and locations

Better branding and layout control on checkout and email templates

Summary: It does require Shopify Plus, but if you’re big enough and need Wholesale it’s a no-brainer.

Verdict: GDPR and privacy compliance just got way easier

The Customer Privacy API is definitely not a big ticket item. It doesn’t even get a headline in Winter editions ‘23! It’s mentioned in a tiny section within “Find & engage customers” and hasn’t even been mentioned in Shopify’s developer changelog, it just suddenly appeared in the developer documentation!

It is definitely a Winter ‘23 feature though, and one I think that Shopify should highlight a bit more prominently, because it makes a significant difference to how easy it is to comply with privacy legislations like GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD. An increasing number of privacy legislations require websites to get consent from their users before performing certain actions with their personal data. This may include selling their information, running analytics or showing ads on the page.

Previously Shopify only had a single opt-in or opt-out control, making a consent popup a bit tricky to implement. You couldn’t run analytics if a user didn’t want their data sold – even though those are completely different purposes! Under some jurisdictions, it’s not even clear the previous behaviour was compliant!

The new Privacy API has granular options for Preferences, Analytics, Marketing and Sale of Data, making it significantly easier to implement a website fully compliant with privacy laws.

Summary: Very helpful to comply with privacy laws – just make sure your consent solution supports it.

Shopify’s Winter ‘23 release in action

View all

It’s been a few weeks since Figma announced its latest round of Little Big Updates. We’ve had some time to play with the new features and see how big these little updates really are.

Top of the list is leading trim. It takes away the extra spacing in your text, giving you the ability to style and align the content exactly how you want it. More control around spacing within buttons and content sections, plus more even spacing throughout all your designs. Winner.

Yet again, Figma’s hit a home run with sticky scrolling. It makes handing over prototypes to devs more intuitive all-round. Instead of cluttering up your design files with notes (which a lot of the time can be a little more complicated if you’re referring to sticky elements or animations) you can use sticky scrolling to keep all your important info at the top of the page. Plus, it helps you create more realistic prototypes – and that means devs and clients have a clearer understanding of how your designs are expected to come together.

If you’re anything like me, you like having the ability to edit your images directly in Figma – without having to rely on other apps such as Photoshop. We’ve been able to do this for a while in Figma, but the process wasn’t very intuitive. However, that’s all changed thanks to blending modes.

This update lets you quickly preview settings and properties before committing to the changes. Simply hover over the design panel and you’ll see a preview of how this setting looks on your canvas, making it faster and easier than ever to find the style you’re looking for.

We all know the pain of going through each artboard and changing a bunch of different layers one by one. Well those days are over, friends. With the new multi-select search, you can find and name specific layers that you need to update. All changes are made simultaneously – speeding up the entire amends process when it comes to the client review stage.

This is the update I’ve been waiting for. Lists were something I always had to manually create, as the ability to generate a list starting with the number 3, for example, wasn’t doable; they’d always automatically always start from 1. Well, the Figma gods have been looking down on us and blessed us with auto-formatting numbered lists. The days of manually numbering content items are over at last.

There are loads of Little Big Updates we could talk about. But here are a final few that stand out to us as being pretty great.

Take control over your typography with hanging punctuation.

Expose nested instances, set preferred values for instance swaps, and simplify all instances within component properties.

Use luminance mask support to mask based on image or object brightness.

The best of Figma's Little Big Updates

We took some time out to see what the future has in store for design and dev at 

. Here’s our pick of our favourite talks – plus the top takeaways from each.

Michelle Barker, “Building a greener web”

The web accounts for 3-4% of our planet's emissions. That’s the same as the entire aviation industry.

Web performance has been high on our agenda lately, and it’s something that’s already helping us to design and develop more consciously. Michelle provided some great insights on what we all can do to help reduce our environmental impact further.

1) Test your site’s environmental footprint. 

 are free tools that give you tons of insights.

2) Instead of Google Analytics, consider using more lightweight analytics that use less energy tracking users. We’re talking about the likes of Cabin, Fathom, Plausible, and Umami analytics.

3) Hold third-party resources and hosting accountable. Again, here are three great tools that will tell you how your partners measure up: 

3) A relatively simple one – and something we should all consider more – design websites to use less high-energy resources like video and more vector graphics and text.

4) And finally, consider your environmental footprint in code, too. And by that, we mean:

Don’t add lots of code to support out-of-date browsers

Do everything you can to optimise performance

Emma Bostian, “Building effective cross-cultural teams”

Because we’re a multicultural agency, we’ve learned that great communication skills are right up there when it comes to working effectively. However, Emma spoke about the importance of being more mindful of culture when it comes to communication. And it’s definitely something we should all be more conscious of – not just at work, but in everyday life, too.

How different cultures communicate, evaluate performance and give constructive criticism

How differences in culture can impact decision-making

And how balancing indirect and direct communication can make a huge difference in how people may interpret what you’re saying

 for more interesting insights around how we communicate.

Slight curveball (but something we were all fascinated by) was the story of stop motion artist, Dina Amin, who’s made a living from her love of taking things apart.

Take it from our people people

Why our holiday allowance is hefty

Shopify Summer ‘23 Editions: first impressions and best additions

Accessibility in design - Motion

Accessibility in design - Content hierarchy

Accessibility in design - UI states, spacing and sizing

Accessibility in design - Typography and legibility

Accessibility in design - Colour testing

Shopify’s Winter ‘23 release in action

The best of Figma's Little Big Updates

Our biggest takeaways from Hey! All Day 2023

AI and blog writing: use it, but don’t lose it

Top AI apps right now: design edition

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