0:00

Oh welcome to Syntax Today we

0:02

have a really great episode. We

0:04

have Cameron Mcafee on who has

0:07

a varied decorated pharisees. His work

0:09

that get have in the very

0:11

early days is worked at Century

0:14

as a creative director and. He's

0:17

just one of those kind

0:19

of cool guys who seems

0:21

to do it all design

0:23

development products it. It's really

0:25

interesting to see someone who

0:27

just like. Make. Stuff

0:30

happen whenever and wherever medium it is

0:32

that they they need to make it

0:34

work on so are going to be

0:36

diving into that as was submissive working

0:39

on called guide guide which is a

0:41

plugin for all the different software design.

0:45

Apps out there and specific I'm curious about.

0:47

Like how do you make a film a

0:49

plugin? Because that's it's. kind of interesting that

0:52

you can. Just. Build plugins for

0:54

Fig my with Javascript. So pretty stoked about

0:56

that. Welcome Cameron, thanks for coming on. Netflix

0:59

around me. So excited, excited to finally

1:01

be on this end of a microphone!

1:05

Ads awesome so give us a rundown. I

1:08

know I gave a sort of have asked

1:10

explanation of who you are but give us

1:12

your pitch of of who you are and

1:14

what you do. Leona. From

1:16

I've I've described a different ways over the

1:18

years I've been Product Polyglot is where I

1:21

ended up with just i never never got

1:23

you interested in one particular spec, a part

1:25

of the spectrum and just you know most

1:27

experts will go down one part of the

1:29

path and I went in every possible direction

1:32

which makes it makes a hard to be

1:34

hired for one thing and yet to sell

1:36

yourself harder but it's It's good because they

1:38

can. You can talked all the different people

1:40

and understand the difference in Earth and. Buy.

1:43

Food: Yeah like you said, I've worked

1:46

didn't get have a century in those

1:48

in those were in creative capacities by

1:50

always have my hands and code ends.

1:53

I've always liked moonlighting as a software

1:55

developer, so these days I consider myself

1:57

an independent software developer and I'm. I

2:00

got the lifestyle I like began with

2:02

the created the criticism from to me

2:04

a nice a care about it and

2:06

use it but I think thought I'd

2:08

rather be mad at code said matt

2:10

it definitely kind of politics and that

2:12

kinda stuff. Yeah what came first the

2:15

the code or that the creative design

2:17

aspect of the the design things. I

2:19

went to school thinking I was going

2:21

to become an illustrator and then on

2:23

I was gonna be ass or motion

2:25

graphics artist because I presume modern philosophy

2:27

was really cool and button and I

2:29

realized mustn't. Affixes Extremely tedious and I can

2:31

stand it when I started learning other absence

2:33

grits the same time and realize I could

2:35

write code that with an animate the sauce

2:37

for me and that that gonna ruin my

2:39

life. As about when I realized like to

2:42

just build tools. Yeah. Very

2:44

similar to my trajectory I was

2:46

going in motion graphics to.in flash

2:48

even interview that a couple flashcard

2:51

ah. And moved in the

2:53

code and I guess I'm happy here.

2:55

We can make we can make things

2:57

happen with code to knock out all

2:59

kinds of ways So you have a

3:01

a long history as being like a

3:03

creative director do and I'm maybe give

3:05

the audience and perspective. I'm like what

3:07

that entails exactly. Yeah definitely.

3:09

I asked her to kind of like

3:12

to to pass on the factory you

3:14

can go down stairs the creative director

3:16

that kind of the Don Draper type.

3:18

where's your the to create a visionary

3:20

and anything into the real and the

3:22

people and your team or conflict your

3:24

minions with the used to work your

3:26

credible and I'm not a file the

3:28

other direction is more vast. It is

3:30

in of my job to create a

3:32

green space, where are people in the

3:34

team to be on some socks and

3:36

south my my job is. It

3:39

more focused on how do I.

3:42

Become the robot to mother of books

3:44

and of things that normally some credit

3:46

people down or not they're hundred. And

3:50

six like removing office politics,

3:52

removing the com a product

3:54

Manus Project Management. Of

3:58

I have to do is come in and be creative. However,

4:05

If project fails my fault and for

4:07

projects they're hot. Springs

4:09

are important to. Do. Agree

4:11

to director is there to like a behind

4:14

the people in their team and than to

4:16

disappear. Yeah. That makes

4:18

sense, especially as like that seems like

4:20

the ideal. Strategy for

4:22

a any kind of director, right? You

4:24

do? you hear the word director? Inherently

4:26

people think a mean. This may be

4:29

the person that is creatively in control

4:31

of everything. but in reality or more

4:33

or less. You're. Directing here

4:35

years you you have like an

4:37

overarching vision but you also know

4:39

how to unlock. The. The

4:42

talented people to do the talented work which

4:44

is I think I heard skill to gather

4:46

way and in you know work that hard.

4:49

Yeah, I think that's where are people

4:51

flop as they're promoting? Is that realizing

4:53

that when you would you take a

4:55

promotion into some sort as management or

4:57

organization mode, you have to turn off

4:59

that Christopher and lot of places where

5:02

you could use that. Yeah, right. But

5:04

like that your creative ability is no

5:06

longer the thing that you already touch

5:08

with. It's

5:10

always good to bring an experience and have in

5:12

your back pocket the answer, but then see if

5:15

the room can solve the problem first. The.

5:17

Does taste come into factor more at

5:20

that point? Oversight acting as kind of

5:22

like and a judge jury? Ah yeah,

5:24

Arbiter. Yeah I said at that's

5:26

a that's an important part was you

5:29

your footprints still be seen in the

5:31

sense. In

5:33

my third of work in a

5:35

sensory with you can see where

5:37

might influence was there without being

5:39

an honor comes from taste like

5:41

yes we will arma minister's decision

5:43

would you consider how are you

5:45

wanna do it. And

5:48

I'm always curious about this because it's

5:50

it's not something that I I dip

5:52

into a lot like I I design

5:54

stuff for. For the website

5:56

him and for what not but it it's pretty

5:58

much just like much as. make stuff that

6:01

looks cool and let her rip.

6:03

But in larger organizations,

6:05

you have people, everybody's

6:08

got an opinion on something and things

6:11

get watered down and people have all this

6:13

feedback. Is there anything that

6:15

you do to sort of like shelter

6:19

designers from that type of thing where

6:21

it can be really... You

6:25

still want them to just kind of go wild and

6:28

be really creative, but then there's this other part

6:30

where it's like there has to be some sort

6:32

of feedback loop. You don't want to

6:34

beat them down too much. Yeah,

6:37

it is definitely a hard thing. And

6:39

I would say that was kind of...

6:41

That was the crux of my trial by fire in

6:45

my career was we

6:47

had a point where we had a marketing

6:50

leader that was just causing all kinds

6:52

of trouble for us in terms of

6:54

unrealistic expectations and all this stuff was

6:56

happening. And I knew personally that

6:58

it was not our fault that these things were not... Like

7:01

the expectations were unreasonable. And so it was not our fault

7:03

that we were not delivering on them. But

7:06

when I sat down and tried to articulate

7:08

this, I realized that we just had no...

7:10

Like we had no structure, we had no

7:12

project management, we had no documentation, we had

7:14

no rules in place, we had nothing. And

7:16

so, you know, ultimately it was our fault

7:19

because we were not able to

7:21

do this. And so I

7:23

think the realization I had was that all

7:25

of the problems we had came down to

7:27

ambiguity of, you know, we couldn't answer questions,

7:29

we couldn't provide answers to... Like we

7:32

couldn't answer the questions, but we also didn't have answers

7:35

ourselves that we already had. We didn't have

7:37

documentation for the processes, we didn't know how long

7:39

things would take. And so I think,

7:42

honestly, just like sitting down and

7:44

documenting everything was the solution to

7:47

99% of the problems. Because

7:49

the thing that I learned is, especially

7:51

being an early employee is... And if

7:53

you're an early employee with the

7:56

word director in your title, even if you're not

7:58

a director, which is my case, like Like,

8:00

by rank, not a director. By title, had director

8:02

in there. And if you've been there for two

8:05

weeks longer than the people that you're working with, if you

8:07

have a piece of paper that says this is how we

8:09

do things, people generally don't

8:11

question it. And so, you know, that

8:14

was my takeaway, is like, come in

8:16

with the documentation, and then, you know,

8:19

when someone comes in and says like, well,

8:21

can we make this green? Because green feels

8:23

good. And we can say, nope, I'm just

8:25

trying to say we don't use green. And

8:27

they say, nope, and you move on. And

8:30

once you do enough projects, and you just write down

8:32

how long it took over

8:34

time, and like what the kind of project was,

8:36

you start to see patterns in

8:38

there. And you can just, you

8:40

know, make the sheet of this is how long this type

8:42

of project takes. And so, you know, when someone comes to

8:44

you and says, how long is this gonna take, you know,

8:46

to build a new webpage or whatever, you know, you can

8:49

say, yeah, you want a good one, or do you want

8:51

a fast one? And if they say a good one, you

8:53

say, well, all right, you're looking at eight weeks. And they

8:55

go, Oh, my God, eight weeks. And it's like, well, here,

8:57

let's talk about this. You know, you need a week to

8:59

do the illustration. Honestly, you need one day to do the

9:01

illustration, and you need six days for you guys to, you

9:03

know, whinge about how you don't like how it works. And

9:06

then we need a week to do the copy. And actually,

9:08

no, we need a day to do the copy, and then six

9:10

days for you guys to talk about how you don't like the

9:12

copy. And then, you know, and you just you go through this

9:14

process. And, and, you know, they feel

9:17

off point by the time at the beginning. But

9:19

then when you nail it at, you know, eight

9:21

weeks, and you're not running over the, you know,

9:23

over the things and your artists aren't mad, and

9:25

the marketing people are happy that they got what

9:27

they want. It's like, yeah, yeah, I mean, you

9:29

know, believe it or not, knowing ahead

9:31

of time is not that hard when you've done it 100

9:34

times. Yeah. And

9:36

I'm sure there's a lot of egos at

9:38

play too. You mentioned like

9:41

having the paper you can

9:43

point to, and maybe getting some of the emotional side

9:45

of it out of it. But like, in

9:47

terms of dealing with egos

9:49

in that space, or just in

9:52

general, you know, hurt feelings, do

9:55

you have any thing there that

9:57

you've experienced on how to mitigate

10:00

feeling hurt if their baby

10:02

is not well received? Yeah,

10:06

I think going

10:08

into a project and you know, you eventually build a rapport

10:10

with the people that you work with, but like going into

10:12

a project where you don't have that, it's

10:14

really good to explicitly state

10:16

like this is where

10:19

the boundaries are of like, this is my responsibility, this

10:21

is your responsibility. You don't have to enjoy this, but

10:23

I am paid to do this and you are paid

10:25

to do that. And there's

10:27

still some headbutting that

10:29

happens in there, but when you have that

10:31

conversation around with people, because there's a lot

10:33

of stuff, taste is this very, it's

10:35

very touchy feely and everybody has taste, everybody thinks that

10:37

their taste is good and everybody thinks that they're good

10:40

at their taste. And so

10:43

they perceive that the Venn diagram overlaps

10:46

or it blends when really those

10:48

are very separate circles. And

10:52

it is very skilled that you meet someone that

10:55

understands their place in the pipeline. And I mean

10:57

this as a like a defensive

10:59

creative person, but I also mean this as

11:01

just a person that works in the like

11:04

in the team of the marketing people came to

11:06

me and say like, this is not converting well.

11:08

Well, you know, it's not my place to complain

11:10

that it's converting well, it's their job to worry

11:13

about that. And so that's not my place to

11:15

give them a hard time about that. So

11:18

it kind of goes in every direction of,

11:21

it's just a lot of managing expectations

11:23

and being very clear and

11:25

articulate about, we are here to

11:27

have taste and this is kind of where the boundary

11:29

of that happens. And you are here to have your,

11:31

you have your goals and we're not going to tell

11:33

you how to do that part. And

11:35

so that mitigates a lot of it

11:38

if you have those conversations up front, but then

11:40

when you get into it, there's still some of

11:42

that you have to get in there and you

11:44

can worry about

11:46

people's feelings. And I think there's a lot of space

11:48

for that and where that's really important. But then I

11:50

found a lot of value in being the scariest person in

11:52

the room where people are, you know, like

11:54

if you're in, I think people in the

11:56

creative fields are usually on the defensive a

11:59

lot. one of the things

12:01

that was important to me was that the people that

12:03

I work with see my team as really

12:05

great people to work with and me as a big

12:07

brick wall because you know like somebody has to be

12:09

in there and say like we are we cannot do

12:11

this and uncomfortable being the bad guy

12:13

if it means that the rest of my team can

12:16

operate comfortably and You know like

12:18

you you the first time you meet a

12:20

person that they prickle at that But then once you know

12:22

once you talk to them and they realize you're not an

12:24

asshole and you're doing it to protect your team Then

12:27

you you know you start to work together

12:29

pretty well. Oh, that's awesome

12:31

and you're You're responsible

12:33

for a bunch of kind of neat things at

12:35

github Specifically the 404

12:39

500 pages the design that yeah,

12:41

so that was my like higher-end test

12:45

That my friend of mine told me So

12:49

back before I were to get up I was just

12:51

trying to get a design job and he suggested that

12:53

I put some code on getting I would make me

12:55

viable and I had no idea what that I

12:58

didn't I didn't understand version control I get at that point

13:00

and Sorry, you

13:02

know I

13:05

don't know if it ever actually made it But

13:07

then he you know a few months later told

13:09

me that they were looking for an illustrator And

13:11

so I applied to the job kind of blindly

13:13

thinking you know I can draw a straightness And

13:16

so they they asked me or they you know they told me they

13:18

got this This mascot did to cut off the first

13:20

thing and they wanted to put it in a

13:22

you know a different outfit And so they they

13:24

asked me to figure out Design

13:27

images for the 404 and 500 pages and

13:29

that was a big basically the extent of

13:31

the thing and so I you know Me

13:34

being naive to copyright at that point. It was

13:36

just like sure let's dress it up as Obi-Wan

13:38

Kenobi and you know You

13:42

know that side of the hilarious and send it to them

13:44

and they loved it and the

13:46

CEO at the time came back and was like hey, can you

13:48

make this pedal apps and you know

13:50

I think the sensible thing for an artist to

13:53

say was no or Sure,

13:55

I can figure out how to download a library

13:57

that'll do it and instead I wrote some really

14:00

awful jQuery code to make a parallel

14:02

action library and then open source that.

14:05

I think that kind of won them over on that. It's

14:08

still available. It's called Plax.

14:11

I think there's a big banner at the top that

14:13

says, please don't use this. Someone else has made their

14:15

code in this. You

14:20

can trust it as much as you trust anyone's code from more

14:22

than a decade ago. Yeah, right. Yeah.

14:26

It was a lot of fun. They're

14:28

still there. I think a parallel

14:30

action might be gone or I know that was rewritten

14:32

at one point, but yeah, it was that was my

14:34

yes. It's just an image now. You're

14:37

not responsible for the unicorn when it goes

14:39

down, are you? No, no, that was OK.

14:42

That was there. And thankfully, we

14:44

don't see that as much anymore. But

14:46

yeah, yeah, it was it was the

14:48

octocats and then the unicorn every

14:51

few days. Oh,

14:53

that's good. The octocats

14:55

is really interesting. Oh, man. It's

14:58

just on the four or four page

15:00

and all the parts are still individual

15:02

images, but it's not parallax

15:05

any longer. This

15:07

is interesting. So they must have ripped that out,

15:09

but just kept the individual images. That's amazing that

15:11

the four or four page is still the

15:14

same thing because that was what, 10 years

15:16

ago that you did that. Yeah,

15:18

I'm like honestly surprised that they haven't

15:20

taken it down. You know, considering

15:23

how probably every other part of the code

15:25

base has changed, except for maybe one under

15:27

construction gift that would be code based forever

15:29

as a joke. I'm surprised

15:31

those pages are still there. Oh,

15:34

that's great. I was curious about

15:36

the the octocats as well, because there's like

15:39

every time I'm at a conference, I get a

15:41

whole bunch of octocat stickers and

15:43

they're all different. I'm like, man, like, is there

15:45

one person designing these or is it like the

15:47

Simpsons where just same people, they have

15:50

the same style that they're able to reproduce? Yeah,

15:53

it's well, when it started, it was. It

15:56

was just me for a while. If you

15:58

go to Octavex.getit.com as a list

16:00

of all the ones that they made

16:02

and a half a bail out it's

16:04

it's updated, the little outdoors on an

16:06

activated it ends or I did a

16:08

bunch of under start out as against

16:10

oh the one that has done most

16:12

of them but then a few other

16:14

the other an ad designers did some

16:16

of them. there was a good at

16:18

engineer that that a couple of which

16:20

is illegal and then once they create

16:22

a T v get up insists he

16:24

became a thing. We started formalizing how

16:26

that worked and we would hire illustrators

16:28

and we've documented stuff and then at

16:30

some point you can see very few

16:33

things in the style where we brought

16:35

in the actual illustrators that understand anatomy

16:37

analyst Nathan Mackinnon and and give a

16:39

really good and on scannable for me

16:41

to manage and which was going to

16:43

their the my transition into the leadership

16:45

role and like that and I can

16:47

finally a sea of the jury to

16:49

back out of my brains by letting

16:51

other people do it for me and.

16:54

Them. Of these ones that you did are

16:56

cute as super cute I I definitely feel

16:58

like I hold the title for most beloved

17:00

ones. Like said the A deal us mortals

17:02

one in the The Grim Reaper Fitness give

17:05

it a grim. results of those ones are

17:07

definitely some of the like. The hottest ones

17:09

we are had was my people love those

17:11

on I definitely have stickers add. Month.

17:14

That you have designed so that yeah

17:16

but hello plastered all over my my

17:18

foot. I was. did he ever got

17:20

in trouble with using like the Simpsons

17:22

or or means or anything like that

17:24

for is such things I'm afraid to

17:26

say out loud to send somebody going

17:28

to find it. but like I spit,

17:30

I don't believe that we ever.any know

17:32

like seasons assist things on that? yeah

17:34

no. within. maybe a all under parody

17:36

and they just didn't want to bother

17:38

with the know nobody heard of a

17:40

small and renamed Get us an insight

17:42

j We didn't raise. Issues with it

17:44

but we definitely have point pretty early

17:47

on where we decided okay with screw

17:49

we can actually do a mess of

17:51

censoring type of it as I also

17:53

noticed that a point where that the

17:55

use of I p that costs and

17:57

resurgence and now my strong. The

18:00

at some point it started out

18:02

as. Like Amazon

18:04

versions of this can we make and button?

18:06

At some point we start realizing people were

18:08

identifying with it and so than the mission

18:10

be terms of at how do we made

18:12

it so that. People. Can be

18:14

the architect and and but that does nothing

18:16

about taste and and how useless that. One

18:19

of the things that I really wanted to

18:21

avoid was trademark in the Arctic Act. as

18:23

if we did that them you have to

18:25

be super with. Conrad

18:27

and we can we could feel protected by. we

18:29

can make it so that someone wants to use

18:31

it and we're cool with that. Of time we

18:33

find an answer. you know when it became three

18:36

things people like eat you. You can't use this

18:38

to make it is that logo for your business.

18:40

You are not the octagon by you can use

18:42

it as your avatar. Get up. Like a great

18:44

I'm glad you identify with this. Make it hard you want

18:46

you can make your own. Had pink hair Chino Do whatever

18:49

you want to. Yeah, I

18:51

went down that route. I

18:53

think it was a couple months ago.

18:55

I had an idea for a like

18:57

out but I'm a parody sticker and

18:59

I was like i wonder what the

19:01

licensing on Oct a cat is in

19:04

and I realize yeah, you're not allowed

19:06

to to do it and I have

19:08

been served cease and desist in the

19:10

past. Ah, I'm from fucking Patagonia so

19:12

when because they're hiring gun at a

19:14

marshawn betrayed by mountains? I know the

19:16

actual Patagonia lie. I took the Patagonia

19:18

sticker. And I just like replace

19:21

Patagonia with javascript and as same logo.

19:23

same same everything right? And then I'd

19:25

I had ten thousand of them to

19:27

put into packages made and I got

19:29

him as I took a picture of

19:31

the i put it on Instagram. I'm

19:33

not lying. Forty five minutes later I

19:35

got a cease and desist in my

19:37

email box and as like is the

19:39

deaths the desert Patagonia followed my Instagram

19:41

and they like this like a hot

19:43

shot. It is illegal right away, so

19:45

am I had a time I ten

19:47

thousand packs of cigarettes open and take

19:49

it out. Of of them

19:51

and now somewhere in a landfill their

19:53

as ten thousand. Patagonia,

19:55

Javascript learner. And. Scots

19:58

House. There's at least like forty of them. Yeah,

20:00

I mean a whole bunch of them. I got one of

20:02

my my monitor over here. I can see it every day

20:05

But I like I posted a photo of it one time

20:07

and West is like you gotta take that down man. You

20:10

can Now

20:12

now that I know a little bit more about

20:14

cease and desist and like how they're the Like

20:16

the first line of like spooking people out of

20:18

any legal trouble I probably probably could have got

20:21

away with it. But at the time I was

20:23

just like I'm not getting sued

20:25

by Patagonia Yeah

20:29

IP is such a sticky scenario

20:31

cuz you know like You

20:33

know being a creative person. Yeah, I care about

20:35

it on both ends of the spectrum and People

20:39

people come in and use your logo to make

20:41

it that like themselves or they want to use

20:43

your content It's like well, no, it's like you

20:46

need to be creative with your things. This is

20:48

this is me You can't use me to fill

20:50

you But then there's also this whole world

20:52

of stuff of like I want you to be able to use

20:54

it and enjoy it And you know, I don't care if you

20:56

mess with it Everybody doesn't understand it

20:58

until they do and then yeah, you get a

21:00

lawyer in your inbox and suddenly

21:02

you're afraid of how to use things Let's

21:08

talk about the century what kind of stuff did you

21:10

do it when you were at century? So

21:14

I when I got hired I was the

21:16

second designer Chris was

21:18

the the product designer and I was

21:20

basically everything else creative and

21:23

so I came on and was working

21:25

on all of the marketing content

21:27

and doing illustration for that and My

21:30

title was always creative director, but it's kind of

21:32

sucks silly to say I was directing when it was

21:35

just me the goal

21:37

was always to eventually grow the

21:39

team and Turn it into a full-fledged

21:42

thing. But in the beginning of that

21:46

Did Like

21:48

a illustration for all

21:50

of our stuff and kind of created this isometric

21:52

style which was by

21:54

no means groundbreaking, but was different than what

21:56

our competitors were doing at the time and

22:00

some of my background and did

22:03

some, I think it was some

22:05

SVG and CSS related animation on

22:07

the homepage to do a power

22:10

outage scene and the lights would

22:12

slowly flicker out in the city

22:14

behind, being like, you know, you've

22:17

got the flow and now everything's

22:19

falling apart. Sorry, cursed again. My

22:23

favorite part was the power outage rolls across

22:25

the city and then the call

22:27

to action button like slickers on, like

22:29

backup generators come on. I was doing

22:33

that kind of stuff and we would do blog

22:35

posts and make illustrations for that sort of

22:38

thing. And then at a point where I couldn't

22:41

keep up with it and hired an

22:43

illustrator to actually come on board. When

22:46

I brought her on, we

22:48

talked about the illustration style, but at

22:50

that point our competitors were starting to

22:52

do similar looking illustrations. So we decided,

22:54

you know, how do we capture what's

22:56

good about what we are and like

22:59

what's good about what she did and,

23:02

you know, create a new style out of that. And so

23:05

from that she came up with this

23:07

new style that had a lot of the like

23:09

blocky geometry, but a lot more fully

23:13

anatomical characters and had

23:15

a lot more range to it. And then

23:17

I took her illustrations and I designed

23:19

a new brand on top of that

23:21

that felt more in line with it

23:23

because ours at that point was very

23:25

gray and neutral. And we introduced like,

23:28

you know, pinks and oranges and became

23:30

this like kind of weird unicorn spectrum.

23:32

When I pitched it, I described it as Taco Bell

23:34

but good because it was

23:36

very like, it was like very, very 90s

23:38

Taco Bell style. And I even had a

23:41

reference image of the Taco Bell that was

23:43

near my house because, you know, we had

23:45

these, you know, jaggedy

23:47

lines and these colors that worked, you

23:49

know, kind of from that palette. And so,

23:52

you know, bringing her on, she changed the

23:55

illustration style into that and my

23:58

capacity became more designer. like

24:01

the vendor developer and kind of providing

24:03

guidance brand-wise and then compared

24:05

another illustrator and copywriter

24:08

and just like started growing the team from there

24:10

and this was about the time where I had

24:12

that you know kind of come to Jesus moment

24:14

about like what it takes to run a good

24:17

creative team and so I

24:19

sat down and I made a chart of all the

24:21

roles that should exist on a team and

24:23

I wrote down who was responsible for it and it

24:25

was something like you know 12 or 15 different roles

24:27

and I was 13 of them and that

24:31

doesn't seem scalable and that was you know the

24:33

reason number one for why we were so slow

24:35

and so I created like the here's the chart

24:38

now and here's what the chart should look like

24:40

in the roles I need to do that and

24:42

just slowly started checking my way down that list

24:44

of you know bringing people on that can do

24:47

those things and as I would release

24:49

some of responsibility you know and as they

24:52

take that on I would release that

24:54

responsibility and at some point my job

24:56

became more the political and organizational in

24:59

the taste side and then still

25:01

software development because I I love to write the code

25:03

so but you know they they would design it and illustrate

25:05

it and all that and then I would build it oh

25:07

yeah cool that's our one more question about the

25:09

illustration because I always find this super interesting we

25:12

have a bunch of illustrators that do my

25:15

stickers and some of the the syntax shirts as

25:17

well and I watched them and

25:19

they're all they're all iPads they just sketch

25:21

it right out on the iPad what

25:24

what's your process for illustrating

25:26

something like that from idea to getting

25:29

it into like an SVG I

25:33

probably scare illustrators or you know it's that one

25:35

one of those things like you can't watch another

25:37

person do a thing yeah I

25:39

I come from the the last generation of

25:41

creative tools where the pen tool was everything

25:44

and so yeah I start and I sketch

25:46

and I get it kind of close to

25:48

where I think it's gonna be you know

25:50

enough that my brain understands the you

25:53

know the anatomy of what's going on and then

25:55

yeah back when I was illustrating more I would scan it

25:57

and but now you know take a picture of my phone

25:59

which is Epic. Our pocket

26:01

into illustrator and with depends on the

26:04

mouse I just or clicking away you

26:06

know that I'm on a fiend for

26:08

visitors and Isis I go in there

26:10

and a like I work all and

26:12

factor in I gotta I think he

26:14

is it like a lot of country

26:16

artists are and now back to my

26:19

pissed off and and more convert to

26:21

back vector later potentially I am I

26:23

think I was. Prefer to work

26:25

and that are just gonna. Do

26:27

with these things eventually. We

26:30

have pets until tonight. Makes other

26:32

artists after all but I'm pretty

26:35

fast affects us. As

26:38

fast as you get. Good at the

26:40

Pentagon. Just straight wraps. yeah

26:42

he just gonna got list everyday and you

26:44

know eventually get we get small with though

26:46

the feds or. Estimated

26:48

say the keyboard shortcuts realized you know like you

26:51

gotta get your all your home to you know

26:53

these things in your figure out like which which

26:55

when changes in the past work but yeah. That

26:57

that in the Pathfinder The Pathfinders the one that

26:59

lets you like merge shapes and south You know

27:01

that does to I go to Tools. Or

27:04

it look like I'm a guy died. So this

27:07

is a a plugin you've had from. How

27:09

long are tells little isn't and how long you've

27:11

been working on it. Yeah the

27:13

guy launched a back in two thousand and

27:16

ten and so bread prior to getting the

27:18

job he can have. I was an intern

27:20

at which as it seems the job at

27:22

a design firm and era and Motion graphics

27:24

for him and they have hired me thinking

27:27

I knew how to do motion graphics because

27:29

they have seen my videos which they didn't

27:31

realize at the time were all and some

27:33

implode generating and love the hired This bulls

27:35

amazon ethics and it's the condition that it's

27:38

and realized are we going to build up

27:40

when the partner on the stats and every

27:42

year of my bosses. Would take us on

27:44

vacations and screen and we wouldn't point where

27:46

on. Are the been

27:49

doing all these photoshop mark on someone's rights

27:51

as a result Of course with them and

27:53

how can we take our own kind of

27:55

that petition even cross my soul to come

27:57

up? and seventeen finals and like we have.

28:00

We measure all of the little buttons and

28:02

get them all. Our scouts and I just

28:04

i got seconds doing this as one tedious

28:06

task over and over and over. And so

28:08

I started looking at scripting to menu that

28:11

was a thing and and runway of little

28:13

scratch that would let me it's put in

28:15

ah a number statements and a distance and

28:17

he would just like bought him into married

28:19

equally spaced and that was kind of my

28:22

my mimic fire moment whereas oh my God

28:24

Ice and I just read about them and

28:26

I save an hour and half of work.

28:29

And. So on movies they cases. I've

28:32

also started moving to how the

28:34

photo shop on system worked and

28:36

back then it was a with

28:38

that you'd go by a flash

28:40

plugin basically with them work with

28:42

like an xml and. When

28:44

he would. You interact

28:47

with voters us as ends. I added

28:49

an interface where I can put those

28:51

numbers and set of having to do

28:53

it in code ends my house that

28:55

was so cool and I think we're

28:57

not that I am. I published at

28:59

on my website at that point I

29:01

was nobody but then I got the

29:03

job would get and ends at appointed.

29:05

I would always post when somebody hired

29:08

and I think and like that that

29:10

week after I got hired don't I

29:12

exploded. Am I never sit me no

29:14

experience in hindsight I should have looked

29:16

look. It up and then I never

29:18

did. I have no idea where he

29:20

blew up Bites I'm in. I'm a

29:22

certain hit with millions of dollars and

29:24

was some people installing it in the

29:26

Indian companies in the incident. Wanted a

29:29

Saturday with customers and insists he was

29:31

everywhere in of a law firm founded

29:33

upon Ons in a was broken down

29:35

in In in hindsight looking at all

29:37

the tweets complex enough to be a

29:39

editor's note of this is is more

29:41

important that people to keep talking about.

29:43

it was love Very It's very exciting

29:45

but very disruptive. Am. In hindsight everybody

29:48

was excited about ah like asked how

29:50

the spree. And south's

29:52

analysts s namely that points was like you

29:54

know people are loving that I was on

29:57

solving a problem for them once upon a

29:59

point of. Beta I

30:01

define was the case may be

30:03

really a mother to flee thing.

30:05

Ah nn yeah. years later I

30:07

decided. I would like

30:09

to on money for this effort put into my. Assumptions

30:13

in any form any on certain amount

30:15

of my friends as as yeah I'm

30:17

with some like sixty thousand page views

30:19

a month and then just like immediately

30:21

mile or charging money and see I

30:23

lost my my my wonderful popularity died

30:25

right there but I offer my amount

30:27

of money than I was or in

30:30

started going up in i can't complain

30:32

about the from but ah Atla yeah

30:34

I apologize i six deciding what the

30:36

plug into the sunset i'm still point

30:38

of it started out as like had

30:40

I'm as or space between still have

30:42

not told him that his read the

30:44

really important that of divine and fit

30:46

and he also decided upon learning of

30:49

that other stuff and did it with

30:51

our yeah we'll see a dumb the

30:53

Vatican and that spot on attendance on

30:55

the alliance with on the front about

30:57

a lot and I agree to. The

31:00

invisible structure that exists and a H

31:02

said that you're in it's you bring

31:04

up Not a solid worst of it

31:06

as have club understands. Was on a

31:08

boat. As

31:11

you put in Los Angeles and

31:13

Aquino margins and columns and rose

31:15

and sacrifice their like the people

31:17

of these exams. Are

31:22

they do not clinton the fall even

31:24

export of despair and healthy stuff up

31:26

with so much more relevant Ten years

31:28

ago and we didn't house and mind

31:31

Stetson mean of that are to idols

31:33

now it's It's still relevant but that

31:35

that the tools or gotten so much

31:37

better these days and Photoshop added a

31:39

feature that. was mexico has a call

31:41

to what i've adults are guess i'll

31:43

take credit for us there is brace

31:45

a mass by itself you know it's

31:47

fair it started out as it started

31:49

out as a scripts were i would

31:51

add values without a scratch and then

31:53

became a plugin where i can in

31:55

what can be interface and then at

31:57

a point where it became like my

31:59

purse testing ground for stuff. And

32:01

so, you know, like halfway through it's

32:03

like, I added a text

32:06

bar to it so that I

32:08

could create this language that would let you roll out kind

32:13

of like equations that create grids because I

32:15

wanted to start doing stuff. Honestly, I just

32:17

wanted to try it. I wanted to do

32:19

more powerful things. You know, every

32:21

tool you'll see will let you put

32:23

in rows and columns and gutters.

32:25

Like these are kind of, you know, like topics,

32:28

but then if you want to add like

32:30

margins to your columns or if you're

32:33

doing, like, if you're the kind of designer that

32:35

loves incorporating math into what you do, like, you

32:37

know, using the Semin that

32:49

you put in equations for how you

32:51

outline things and let it just do

32:54

the math and even figure out where

32:56

things go and how to even space this.

32:58

So that's what I've all been to

33:01

is this kind of power tool for how do

33:03

I put guides in this document so

33:05

I can line stuff up in the way that I

33:07

want, that are beyond what these built-in tools can do

33:09

for me. Yeah, that's

33:11

really cool. So you

33:14

essentially made your own language called

33:17

grid notation. Did you have

33:19

to write like a whole parser for that? The

33:23

first time I did it, I have rebuilt

33:25

Gaguide, I think eight times now. And

33:28

I think that's the last time, I

33:30

think. But the first time I did

33:33

grid notation, I wrote my own parser

33:35

and it would just, I think

33:37

the method was called chop and it would just

33:39

like chop like a Pac-Man its way through a

33:41

string and interpret stuff. I think I would like

33:43

split on spaces and then try to interpret what

33:46

was in each token to figure out what it

33:48

was supposed to do. When

33:50

I rewrote it for the current version, I switched

33:53

to a JavaScript-based parser

33:55

called Moo,

33:58

I think. Ah

34:00

are all the opportunity to put in

34:02

the show notes. Murder. That's. A

34:04

type of person style. He

34:08

and are be or something and it's basically

34:10

has increased. The first three of like you

34:12

you took a nice your strengths I were

34:14

you can get up into little little bits

34:16

of meeting basically but it's a whole bunch

34:19

of some strings and then parser has a

34:21

tree where you set up things that are

34:23

kind of like regular expressions but it's more

34:25

like pairings of types of tokens. the have

34:27

meaning and it's just like rest of your

34:30

documents and a half a season and comes

34:32

back with ads and an abstract syntax tree

34:34

near it's it's like a tears Everything that's

34:36

in this. Text in the form of confirmed

34:38

as I'm Anne Frank From there you can

34:41

say like Alex and and you guys are

34:43

using logic on this on us added like

34:45

offenses are Texas and now you can You

34:47

can read or at a club like this

34:50

isn't consider or this as an actor or

34:52

this is I told us and then you

34:54

call a parser light and I and instead

34:56

can be followed by and from and the

34:59

thing px pixels and so if you ever

35:01

see like integer p had a unit in

35:03

point for the to see a picture of

35:05

a type thing. And image you get on

35:08

the other into system. Of energy from

35:10

one that see how it gives an array of

35:12

of a token booth. Found him and from there

35:14

you can start doing on top of that. Just.

35:17

Live over. I'm yeah, that's that's

35:19

how how Babbel works and that

35:21

that's how pretty much every javascript parser

35:23

types kept works. is that somebody

35:25

else wrote and S T parser

35:27

for that language and that's how Islam

35:29

or exactly In then you can

35:31

just start lupin' through them and

35:33

saying i will If this thing is

35:36

preceded by this thing or is

35:38

this thing has occurred before, then

35:40

throw an era that's really interesting and

35:42

had never seen. This is called

35:44

no no contact move. A highly

35:46

optimized. Organizer Elixir generator Use it.

35:48

Took a nice your strings before

35:50

parsing. I'm. yeah

35:53

and i can provide more the links for lack

35:55

of it's it's a multi step change there's like

35:57

a the luxor for it itches what happened i

35:59

said And then there's the actual person for

36:01

it, which I think I'm forgetting the name

36:03

of that one. But yeah, it's a fun

36:05

round all to go down of interpreting text.

36:08

Yeah, yeah, we one

36:10

question we had previously. I've

36:13

asked many times and I think we've gotten to

36:15

the bottom of it was like, can good colors

36:17

be calculated? And

36:20

we think the answer to that is no. But

36:22

I'm curious if I'm curious, a,

36:24

your answer to that and B,

36:26

can good design be masked? Can

36:29

you calculate good design? Can it

36:31

be good? Oh, God, that's a

36:33

good question. And I don't think we'll be solved

36:36

in my lifetime. Actually, my dad asked

36:38

me about this recently. He

36:42

wants to he wanted to build a business

36:44

card where he's

36:46

got like this logo that's got multiple chunks of colors in

36:48

it. And he wanted it so you can like click on

36:51

the colors and it would change the colors and basically generate

36:53

palettes for you. And he was asking me

36:55

how practical this project would be. And

36:57

I'm telling him was just that you can

36:59

mask colors for sure. And you

37:01

can do stuff where you like are comparing contrast

37:04

levels and these these type of things. But

37:06

taste is such a hard thing of you

37:09

can put these two colors together, but should you? You

37:12

know, and that's I don't know

37:14

that there's a way to solve that. I

37:16

mean, maybe maybe we just haven't figured out enough math

37:18

to do it. You know, maybe we can our

37:21

way through it and just, you know, statistically

37:24

come up with good color combos. But I

37:27

don't know that that we'll

37:29

ever come up with a color library that has good taste. I

37:32

think that is just like the permutations are

37:34

too complex there. And

37:36

then as far as like, can you can you math design?

37:41

I don't know. Everybody is scared about

37:43

AI right now taking our jobs. And,

37:47

you know, we will definitely cut

37:49

out like a whole base layer of I don't even know

37:51

if you can call it creativity, but

37:53

I'm like templatizing that kind of level of things.

37:56

You know, like, you know, did Squarespace take our jobs?

38:00

You know they, they don't have much of

38:02

what's this all out of the doctor for

38:04

most people and so like you know some

38:06

designers off their jobs for map maybe are

38:08

know where I'd bird area stuff is a

38:10

we ever going to death as good as

38:12

the information weekend it's and. I

38:15

think as long as we are still being creative

38:17

we didn't And as oh Matt and as I

38:19

did I'd and an awful i don't forget tools

38:21

that can design better than people and so much

38:24

as divine. As good as the last thing that

38:26

they ah. Yes, it's cool.

38:28

it's you. look at Mit Journey and you

38:30

ask. It is on your website and it

38:32

kicks out. Things. That were

38:35

really popular on Dribble. Three.

38:37

Years ago of you know, and it's

38:39

isn't the whole. Arm

38:41

trends have changed since then, but obviously

38:43

whatever it's been trained on has not

38:45

been been updated on. that says yes

38:47

Ios think that's interesting. Yeah, I think

38:50

ethnic foods the beauty of creativity is

38:52

based completely on is inserted to control

38:54

it ends. You don't know when it's

38:56

gonna happen and you know it's a

38:58

animals your this way but up. Or

39:01

I'll I'll wake up and there's that that

39:04

like a little space between being awake or

39:06

between being sleep and makes it's coming into

39:08

the room or my brain and for a

39:10

year and a reasonable part of me is

39:12

still asleep and so it's just it's chaos

39:14

and and things and interesting things happening. I

39:17

waited and has ever multiple times were woken

39:19

up my sleeves and docket. this is great

39:21

and housemate and you do a facade and

39:23

then I look at it in the morning.

39:25

hims like. When. You God's

39:27

name was I think the and yet

39:29

about it puts like about every night

39:31

as professor Creativity comes from is like

39:33

it's. It's this is turning off

39:35

good. So. Early, good sense and just letting

39:38

your brain one on with it. And nine,

39:40

I don't think it's elephants. We can build

39:42

a tool that does. That's because the tool

39:44

was always following some sort of rule. or

39:46

to know it's. just

39:48

like ah you know if you think about the

39:50

resolution of a screen like you know it it

39:53

looks beautiful woman edges are nice and smooth but

39:55

if you get really close to still scores and

39:57

so much as i think that a with with

39:59

creative You know, you can zoom far enough back

40:01

to feel like, ooh, this is creative and great, but

40:03

it's still working with the rules that it's been given.

40:07

I love your liminal space comment

40:09

because I have on

40:11

my to-do app, essentially, it's a

40:13

just a to-do board and it's

40:15

called Ideas to be Filtered. And

40:18

it's specifically for any time that I am

40:20

in that space and I have my biggest

40:22

best idea ever, I throw it in Ideas

40:25

to be Filtered. And the

40:27

concept is that I will then take

40:29

it from the Ideas to be Filtered and

40:31

I will put it into my actual to-dos to

40:33

create the thing. The thing is, is

40:35

that like you mentioned, so many of those ideas just

40:38

don't go anywhere or aren't good. So

40:40

my Ideas to be Filtered is just

40:43

math, a bunch of like dead ideas,

40:45

fit idea graveyard. I

40:47

have a question about building a plugin. You

40:51

know, as an engineer, you

40:54

can challenge and take tasks

40:56

on programically. Was it

40:58

intimidating at all? And like, what was

41:01

the process of even building a plugin

41:03

like and how did

41:05

you just get started with that? I

41:09

hesitate, well, not hesitate. I don't know

41:11

how to answer that because you're like

41:13

condensing a 13-year journey into one decision.

41:16

I love it. I love it. I think,

41:19

you know, that decision then versus

41:22

now is very different. Like going

41:24

into it now, well, if

41:26

I rewind five years before the previous,

41:28

or the current iteration of Guy Guide,

41:32

it was just building them one-off and, you know, every

41:34

time I would make a plugin, I would have to

41:36

rebuild the entire thing and it would take a year

41:38

to build, you know, whatever it is. And

41:41

then I finally realized, and actually

41:43

I took Wes's course on React

41:45

and learned about how to build

41:48

these more sensible applications. And

41:51

so I built it as a React

41:54

app. And it's basically like an inside-out

41:56

API where I've got the plugin, which

41:58

is a React app. It's

42:00

just, you know, like, I don't

42:02

know that headless is the right word here, but it's

42:05

got, it can make method calls to do stuff, but

42:07

they don't do anything. And then you plot that inside

42:09

a wrapper that then has a connection

42:12

between the application and the plugin.

42:14

So the plugin says, I want to add a

42:16

guide, and then it just like calls out and

42:18

hopes that somebody listens. And then the plugin hears,

42:21

I need to add a guide and then does

42:23

it in the form of that application. And

42:25

so now building a plugin takes me like three

42:27

weeks, because it's, you know, it's like a week

42:29

to hook all that up and a week to

42:31

do the, like rebuild the

42:34

UI so it looks like the app, and then a week

42:36

to do a marketing stuff. So

42:38

like, in that regard, it's not that intimidating

42:40

anymore, because it's just like, you know, I just need to

42:42

read the books and figure out how to connect these things.

42:46

You know, going back more than a decade. I

42:48

don't think I knew what I was doing. It

42:50

was just, I

42:52

know I can do scripting, and I can

42:54

do a bit of math, and I want

42:56

to not do math anymore. And so just,

42:58

you know, can I write code that does

43:00

this? And it's, you know, the, you

43:03

get that urge late at night of like, I've

43:05

got this idea, and I should go to sleep, but instead,

43:07

I'm gonna read these docs and try this. And you

43:09

know, yeah, 4am. And it's, you know,

43:12

last night. Yeah. Yeah. So,

43:14

you know, like, I don't know that it was

43:16

intimidating back then. But it was because I was

43:18

naive about what I was getting into. And, you

43:20

know, now I've learned so much that it's not

43:22

intimidating, because I know what I'm into. Yeah, it's

43:25

somewhere in there. It's been scary. But you know,

43:27

it's just, super

43:30

developers are driven by fixing things. And

43:32

I couldn't turn it off if I

43:34

wanted to. Yeah. So, Sketch,

43:38

Figma, InDesign, Illustrator, and

43:40

Photoshop, they all have

43:42

JavaScript APIs for interacting

43:45

with it and adding guides on top

43:47

of your artboard. Yeah, they

43:50

do. Each of those apps has JavaScript

43:52

APIs of some sort. Some of them

43:54

have like lower level languages with Photoshop,

43:56

you can use C++, which would be

43:58

the better one to use. but

44:00

it's not my wheelhouse. But with

44:02

all these plug-in systems, you really have two environments.

44:04

You've got the WebBU-esque

44:07

environment, which is where

44:09

you have your interface,

44:11

and you can build whatever you want

44:14

in that sandbox. But it doesn't know

44:16

anything about the

44:18

application. And then they all

44:20

provide some sort of way of bubbling

44:23

messages up to the next level environment,

44:25

where it's kind of more like an

44:27

OJS-type world, where there's some sort of

44:29

API to interface, still with

44:31

JavaScript, with the host application.

44:35

That's cool. I had no idea that you

44:38

could just build... I always thought, oh

44:40

yeah, you could script it with JavaScript,

44:42

but you can also embed a WebView

44:44

UI. I often think about these audio

44:46

editing tools. You buy an

44:48

audio plug-in to add AutoTune or

44:50

whatever, and every single one of

44:52

them have these hilarious knob-turning interfaces.

44:54

And I often wonder, what are

44:56

these things built in? And I'm

44:59

curious if any of them are.

45:01

Yeah? My best friend in

45:03

the whole world owns

45:05

GoodHertz. Oh yeah. Yeah.

45:08

And he builds audio plug-ins for

45:10

a living. And even though he

45:12

does more of the DSP side

45:14

of things, they use WebTek. They

45:16

use SVG. They're using HTML. They're

45:18

using JavaScript inside of these things

45:20

for the interface. I'll post them

45:22

to his, because they do have

45:24

wacky interfaces as well, some

45:26

of which are gorgeous and really interesting.

45:28

But yeah, I know they use WebTek. We should

45:31

get them on the show. We can talk all

45:33

about it. Yeah. That's cool. And

45:35

in order to make it

45:37

feel native, do you just have to

45:39

re-implement the UIs of Photoshop

45:41

and whatever? Or do you just kind

45:43

of go with a generic

45:46

Mac OS look? It

45:48

depends on the platform you're working on. So

45:51

Photoshop, in their current iteration, they've gone through,

45:53

I think, three since I've been doing this.

45:55

Yeah. Their

45:58

current version is not actually... Really

46:00

a browser? It's letter and

46:02

an interpreter that mostly simulates

46:05

a browser it supports. Communities

46:08

and for may thought us we're web

46:11

components you can use to well minnick

46:13

their styles that they're using in the

46:15

ass and Psycho as and thirty three

46:17

don't have to do as much work

46:19

styling with Sigma Ad and theres think

46:22

is ah mostly on styled So yeah

46:24

by by default you would get and

46:26

like the fairest in L as you

46:28

can then go in and you mean

46:30

a retreat your own version of their

46:33

interface I think as inject a bit

46:35

of native. I also like. To

46:38

inputs you can't have an orange light around. And

46:41

it has blue East Have. Been

46:44

of it out is my plugins Also

46:46

it was like that the core know

46:48

about a lot of different things in

46:50

were but then there's the this the

46:52

if you know which is what communicates

46:54

between the aftermath that he didn't and

46:56

then there's little i'll flir that's on

46:58

top of the the. Core ends I

47:01

inject to balance that have been styled

47:03

sense that day on the current upsets

47:05

it looks like it blends in yen

47:07

med school and up as. A

47:10

kind of similar to React native

47:12

and if you've ever built a

47:14

re cast extension as occurs Recast

47:16

uses React but it's didn't break

47:18

as as a hundred percent natives

47:20

and they just they just use

47:22

React to make their own components

47:24

and to interface with their low

47:26

level A P eyes. and you

47:28

can't use Html Css inside of

47:30

it but you can use Javascript

47:32

to sorta architect and then then

47:34

then the compile step brings it

47:36

to whatever like add. Dropdown

47:38

is in re cast as always need

47:41

that They. Make. These

47:43

things accessible via javascript even if

47:45

they're not actually rendered in web

47:47

tax. Yeah and it's

47:49

it's I love this as a format of

47:51

Thursday night and does. The app can be

47:53

written in whatever it is but they expose

47:55

javascript to be happy I can. It's the

47:57

as accessible I'm in for better or worse.

48:00

The the barrier to entry is pretty

48:02

low and denied. It gets more complicated

48:04

once you want to be as a

48:06

software developer the at things like. When

48:10

I just Ups are filling out the

48:12

pipeline set of work with immune systems

48:15

and and they're all so quirky and

48:17

there were ways like that the solder

48:19

shop system but for all the Adobe

48:21

Systems has. When. You're using Javascript

48:23

to interact with their application. You're using

48:25

something they call extends Fit which is

48:27

a version of yes three that they

48:30

implemented such as great Cause like order

48:32

of operations works differently and not and

48:34

so we're transpire will take out friends

48:36

that you put in to and forth

48:38

order of operations by that and break

48:40

a logic because of an interpreter interprets

48:42

the differently so have to do crazy

48:44

things like that and as you know

48:46

their spirit that turn assume that there's

48:49

factories does not include column numbers so

48:51

if you want to new. Century which

48:53

I do not. I'm not an opponent,

48:55

I just like the products were sick

48:57

like yes this is you can't watch

49:00

My dad's sister is you can't admin

49:02

if I'd code because it'll deploy you

49:04

with online one which was was access

49:06

so yeah I had to like their

49:08

hack out that the Mina fire so

49:11

that it would break everything into lines

49:13

at least so you know it's I

49:15

get a vague approximation Bally's middle line

49:17

of code that it with on an.

49:20

Attic of I can we don't

49:22

know why. numbers on than the

49:24

exception south of also be required

49:26

stitch statues of cocoa scripts which

49:28

compiles javascript into objective see. An

49:30

end and when I first started

49:32

with the stats when you can

49:35

actually wait to see with which

49:37

to find my fear of cats

49:39

inside as any sort of syntax

49:41

and not Northwest switches script is

49:43

looking sad that feels a little

49:45

bit more comfortable when you do

49:47

it that it's the all of

49:49

them have this weird compilation. And

49:52

fusion and chaos in there. And

49:54

Sigma. You can't do multiple files.

49:56

You get an Html file which

49:58

runs your plugin. and a JavaScript

50:00

file which runs your API. And

50:03

so if you want to add a React

50:05

app in your plugin, you have to inline

50:07

the entire React app into the HTML file

50:09

because it evals the entire file. You

50:12

run into all these weird edge

50:14

case things that you have to figure out how to

50:17

account for in your bundler basically

50:19

to make this stuff work. And

50:22

how are you architecting all this? You have a

50:24

big webpack config or

50:26

anything like that? Yeah,

50:28

this is one of those things where I

50:30

wish I had listened to syntax before starting

50:33

this project because I committed

50:35

hard to CommonJS right before I did

50:38

this. Oh, fuck, that's why you got to

50:40

listen. Yeah, if

50:42

there's one thing to take away, it's listen

50:44

to syntax. And

50:47

by Sentry, listen to syntax and by Sentry. Yeah,

50:50

wow. But I have

50:52

been picking out bits of CommonJS

50:54

for a long time and I'm

50:57

using webpack which I wish I could

50:59

move on to Vite but

51:01

Vite doesn't spit out multiple assets

51:05

from what I've seen. It's very much

51:07

designed to just spit out one thing

51:09

whereas I need different types of app

51:11

types for different things because

51:14

you'll have to output your plugin JS

51:16

but you also have to output your

51:19

interface JS and do these things separately. I

51:21

have a Vite set up that kicks out a

51:23

different CSS file for every single course

51:26

and I'm doing some stuff to make

51:28

it work and yeah, it's not easy,

51:30

I agree. Yeah, but

51:33

I can see obsolescence happening as

51:35

I'm sitting there because I'm using

51:37

Jest and

51:39

I've hit some sort of issue with

51:42

my test where I can test one

51:44

plugin but if I test

51:46

all the plugins, I hit some sort of memory

51:48

leak where it eventually just fails and I don't

51:50

get any test results. And

51:53

I'm just watching an issue where it's like a problem

51:55

in JS that they just kind of won't fix. And

51:59

the... This the

52:01

sketch version it uses libraries that

52:03

was that were created by sketch

52:05

for interacting with them They're

52:08

written using Back

52:10

for and so everything is like five except

52:12

for the sketch version, which is what packs

52:14

for because I can't oh man I'm not

52:17

so it's like it's just like it's

52:19

a nightmare of gotchas everywhere And I know it's gonna ruin

52:21

my life at some point in the future Oh

52:26

Man all right well we're approaching the

52:28

time here. It's at 55

52:31

minutes, so I think we want to wrap it

52:33

up is there anything that you wanted to hit that we didn't get

52:35

to no I mean the I

52:38

got to talk about my interests, which is always fun to do

52:40

so yeah, I think I think I'm good nice

52:43

cool Well, let's get

52:45

into the part of the show where we talk

52:47

about sick pics and shameless plugs Is there anything

52:49

you would like to sick pick? Yeah

52:54

I've got a list of three and I can go through them fast

52:56

But so the the first one is

52:58

the Ember mug which yeah I

53:00

for the longest time resisted buying an expensive

53:02

mug that keeps me my tea hot But

53:04

then the first time I realized I had

53:06

hot tea after 90 minutes I was sold

53:09

so I would say like if you can get

53:11

over your ego get one of them They're great then

53:13

I wanted to pick the the band

53:15

water parks That's like a pop punk

53:17

bands that's been around for you know about as long

53:19

as guy guide and I've been enjoying

53:22

their music but I went in a rabbit hole

53:24

researching them and they really won me over when

53:26

a Guy posted on Twitter that he

53:28

got a tattoo of one of their song titles

53:31

and the tattoo artist accidentally wrote the same word

53:33

twice in the tattoo and And

53:35

so they win in Spotify They wanted

53:37

to Spotify and Apple and all these services and updated the

53:40

name of their song to not so sad to you Oh

53:43

nice. I could I figured like okay these these

53:45

guys are my band from now on. Oh, that's

53:48

And then one for code XQ

53:51

program is a really cool website for learning

53:53

different things not to take attention from y'all

53:55

but that was very cool I haven't even

53:57

used it in the last year year and

53:59

I just liked it active because I was

54:01

enjoying donating to them just because of how

54:04

much they like they and it's like they

54:06

gave you a challenge and you type it

54:08

in and you like you

54:10

learn the stuff as you do it and they do

54:12

a lot of like cycling repeats of it and it's

54:14

just a really cool system to learn and now that

54:16

I'm learning Swift I wish that there was something like

54:19

that for that. Totally. Yeah,

54:21

love it. Those are some sick pics.

54:24

Oh yeah, Wes, who is it? You

54:27

sent me an Ember mug one time. Oh. For

54:29

being a GitHub star. So I do have one and you

54:31

are absolutely right, Cameron. It is. You

54:34

pick it up after half an hour. Oops, I forgot my tea.

54:37

Still warm. Yeah.

54:40

Whenever I end up having a drink in a regular mug,

54:42

I'll come back to it and pick it up and nearly

54:44

do a comedic sick tank when it's like, oh my God,

54:46

this is epic. Do

54:52

you have any shameless plugs for us? Is there anything you'd like

54:54

us to plug? Obviously,

54:57

Guide Guide, I just launched the Figma version.

54:59

I'm trying to spread the word as far

55:01

as I can. That's a guide guide dot

55:03

me and you can do slash

55:05

syntax. It'll give you a

55:07

50% off the first year of using it.

55:10

Oh, wow. Mostly

55:12

trying to throwing it in there so I can

55:14

track to see if converting is working. It's

55:16

been great. I've been experimenting with different

55:18

types of promotion and finally made

55:21

my first sale. It cost

55:23

me $3,000 of promotion to

55:25

get one license, but maybe

55:27

deciding not to do that. It's

55:30

worth tracking. Pricing on this

55:32

is really good, by the way. I should just

55:34

say, I loaded the page and I saw

55:37

$9 and then I was like,

55:39

a month and

55:41

it's a year. That's

55:44

an awesome price. Yeah. I've

55:46

gone through different iterations. It used to be a lot more

55:48

expensive. With this one, I decided to

55:50

scale it back to try to fit more how I

55:52

want people to use it. It's

55:55

actually, I call it Sort

55:58

of pay what you want. Volunteers

56:00

are exactly the same nexus price for

56:02

different intended use so you can buy

56:05

the toughest one Gala benefits and knives

56:07

on planes they are in case you

56:09

wanna do with the way I kind

56:12

of wish he would do it here

56:14

and and a my other sympathize with

56:16

my my website Temur Max com nostalgia

56:19

I don't know in the fines were

56:21

I operate their said. Well.

56:23

Thanks so much Man This is done. Been

56:25

incredible! Ah really loved here and everything

56:28

here. The thanks for having me, it's

56:30

been fun. Net: eighty. Least.