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Mark Cianfrani

@cianfrani.me

549 followers 352 following 127 posts

design system engineer, design tokens + web components. Current status: A Pattern Language cianfrani.dev

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 22/12/2025

I actually hate CSS.

A book icon next to some text that wraps, misaligned

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 06/12/2025

Literally, just let designers design and then throw an LLM to pattern match what colors actually get used and smooth any inconsistency.

Claude code asking about semantic intent wrt color usage

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 04/11/2025

New global design system just dropped. If I see one more <SlopCard> I’m gonna lose it.

An AI generated card component with a left border width that’s also rounded.

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 27/06/2025

Documenting every single permutation of every component always felt redundant. If you have an input component, you can easily guess what the textarea will look like. Future of DS/AI is patterns. No need to waste context.

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 24/12/2024

Your design system is not a tree. We/I spend too much time trying to put things into boxes. Is this a component? A pattern? A token? Instead, start with the problem. A disabled button, for example, exists in so many different contexts and patterns. blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/i103su12/fil...

Diagram showing a Venn diagram with four overlapping circles and three tree structures. The text explains that individual trees can be visualized, but the overlapping semilattice structure is too complex to visualize all at once. Excerpt from Christopher Alexander's "A City is not a Tree"

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 21/11/2024

I hate how genuinely useful this would be.

MDN limited availability disclosure that includes Figma as a browser

MDN browser support table for text-spacing-trim that includes Figma as a browser.

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 15/11/2024

How to break 99 websites. It's a shame because base 24px font size looks so much better in nearly every scenario that doesn't need excel-level information density.

Safari accessibility setting: "Never use font sizes smaller than 24"

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 14/11/2024

I was fully expecting this to open some new AI clippy feature and was pleasantly surprised when all it did was change the UI a little.

Sparkle icon next to the text "Try the new merge experience"

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 10/11/2024

This is a good component. I love this thing so much. There’s something really satisfying about tiny boxes that do one thing well that scratches some itch in my brain. Knob-Driven Development: make every prop matter.

A Boss BD-2 Blues Driver guitar effects pedal

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Mark Cianfrani @cianfrani.me · 07/11/2024

messing with a set of web components to find the nearest token that you can hopefully drop into your docs or storybook. anyone have any w3c spec files they can donate to the cause?

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