iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 27/09/2026

Sunday morning inky drawing. ☺️

A drawing in black in white in simple lines fantasy style with autumn theme. Mushrooms3 large different type of mushrooms in the middle and foliage forming a frame

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 20/09/2026

First steps in urban sketchydoodles 😅

Bright red farm house with 2 trees in front, gray roof. Sketches on an A6 notebook.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 15/09/2026

Also. I wonder if I should call reception about the bear in my room.

A teddy bear head on the wall with scarf, glasses and hat

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 15/09/2026

And so the 2nd conference period of the year has started! Off to @ndcconferences.com Oslo! Excited! ☺️

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 24/07/2026

First week holiday. Picking up on some drawing. 🙂 I wasn't able to draw anything a few years ago. Now slow and steady getting a bit better. Starting to find a preference for ink... Finding inner peace is good.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 25/06/2026

That was a fun panel! Many interesting questions from AI to UI. Happy to be the community representative between a bunch of lovely people from Google. Here at #GoogleIOConnect

From left to right on iO stage: Bramus, Rachel, Jeremy, Michael and me.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 25/06/2026

Joined a vibe coding session at #GoogleIOConnect. Probably was the only guy going nerdy on env() variables in CSS, but hey, I always wanted a quick reference for these. Might finish it later, might not, but always nice to create a little proof of concept. #BuildwithGemini

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 25/06/2026

Having themed Ice cream at #GoogleIOConnect with @bram.us Temperature is getting ridiculous though. 😅 Also a lot of AI stuff. Looks like it's really growing up this year. I like modern web guidance. It's a good foundation for some of the harder js-polyfills #BuildwithGemini

Bramus and Me sharing an ice cream with a chrome dino

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 20/06/2026

Today Korean fusion BBQ. Always been on my mind to do a tech podcast/video series with food in summer. Like. Tech and food combined. 😂 My parents in law are vegetarian so. Either style of bbq I could handle. But yeah, funds and time and such. 😅

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 14/06/2026

Got this beautiful work of art from my daughter today. 😍

A figure created with ice cream wood sticks coloured into a male figure and a cape representing a super hero with text "mijn held"

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 13/06/2026

And now up to @schepp.dev showing how he created a dark/light toggle without altering html using CSS carousels. ♥️ At @css.cafe

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 13/06/2026

Marco-Christian Krenn showing us some highly adaptable design systems using smart combinations of modern CSS and some JS 🤩 at @css.cafe

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 13/06/2026

@bram.us kicking off @css.cafe with the ins and outs of anchor positioning.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 13/06/2026

Look at these handsome chaps. The day after #CSSday they organize @css.cafe meetup. My battery is pretty dead, but I'm giving it a go today 😊 doing an intro on some ideas I have for range sliders 😅

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

Hey @nerdy.dev , I can tell you where you are. At #CSSday nailing the closing talk. 🤘Adam gives us an overview on how to improve our design systems, challenging us to push further.

Adam Argyle on stage slide about container queries behind him with text: where am i

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

Nice to see @una.im on the #CSSday stage again! 👏Going over some hot tips on functions, UI patterns, interactions, scroll state and driven and lots of other goodies, all to respect the key UX principles. 💯

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

Now how about some cool sponsors for #CSSdaybthis year! 😎 @9elements.com spreading the love and joy for css!

Nils and Jan in front of the 9 elements booth

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

(Mad?) scientist mode with CSS and @html5test.com showing animations on an oscilloscope. #CSSday 🥼

Niels with an oscilloscope displaying a clock at css day

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

@developer.chrome.com Chrome DevRel Team doing some very interesting feedback session on navigation matching at #CSSday. A lot of food for thought. A lot of folks interested 😅 place is packed

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

I love a good architecture talk. It's always a bit subjective and opinionated (which is exactly why I love it). There were some nice things in here that I might implement myself on a greenfield project in the future. Some really smart things 😊 Thx @matuzo.at ! #CSSday

Manuel in front of a slide that shows the structure of cascade layers in css

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

Always nice to see that I'm not the only one nerding out on the enhanced attr() capabilities. Preach @kevinpowell.co , preach 🙌 lovely practical approach on how to use it for a perception visualization 🤩

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 12/06/2026

On the side at #CSSday I've been tinkering with the filterable select. It's still in very early stages in Chrome Canary, but I can't help being a little bit excited. @jakearchibald.com gave a talk yesterday on how the customizable select came to life. It's amazing how many doors are being opened.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

Getting in some history of the select element with @jakearchibald.com. shout-out to the folks #openUI. I can't stress the importance of this group enough. 😊 A lot more goodies are being worked on there. open-ui.org That being said. Great closer for #CSSday day 1.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

@bram.us with cranking up view transitions to 11. The program at #CSSday is on fire. Are we really already starting the last two talks of day 1? 😮 The view transitions API is a powerhouse... Easy to get, hard to master. Bramus helps us to get closer to the latter.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

@sjoy.lol giving us insights on light and dark mode. Not just about the CSS features, but also pointing out that contrast is a balance. Too much contrast can be bad as well. Great informative talk! 🤩

Sara on stage with slide behind her at css. Main text is: why not both? Good question!

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

Interesting CSS crimes at #CSSday and a showcase on creating a CPU with CSS. By @rebane2001.bsky.social

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

What actually happens when you place width: 50%? A look under the hood of a browser engine by Jelle Raaijmakers (Ladybird). #CSSday

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

However... We already use Rems.. we don't need that extra confusion. So an opt-in with a meta tag is sort of the way to go. The env() can still be used for specific targeting. Seems media queries have a bit of different rules. Not working the same with root font sizes.

Text on slide: meta name=text-scale content=scale

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

Since there are cases where the current behavior would break even more when fixing this automatically, we need an opt-in. Seems there is an env variable that can help... There might be a way... But this could get really repetitive with the calc functions. There also was a new PEM value discussed..

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

Normally @joshtumath.uk always gives a great overview on socials during #CSSDay. At the moment he's a bit preoccupied giving a talk himself. Starting with blowing our minds with text scaling differences on different devices/browsers. Now... Can we fix this?

Josh with slide behind him at CSS day. Slide text: Can we fix it?

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

I remember playing with my oklchroma.utilitybend.com side project. I always stumbled on issues where it felt too mathematical! Never getting it perfect for some reason. Some of the reasons for my struggles were beautifully answered here at the first talk by @lea.verou.me at #CSSDay 🙏💯

Lea with slide behind her that has text: so what happens if we try to render an out of gamut color

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 11/06/2026

Too many good conversations yesterday to write social media posts. But hey! #CSSday is starting ♥️

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 08/06/2026

Morning walk... Oh hello! 🐿️

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 04/06/2026

Third talk of the day! Talking about token costs. Which is important for us, and our clients.

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 04/06/2026

Doing a coven of wisdom meetup! Cane here with my colleague Luca. Conversations of UI and AI. 😊

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 04/06/2026

I'm claiming this for an office today!

A green comfortable looking sound reducing sofa

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 28/05/2026

Some great talks on personas in an age of AI and Taste, performance and a11y in an AI world. I loved the UI shout-out here. Taste is so important. #webexpo

Nick presenting Building personas in the age of ai

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 28/05/2026

Designers should be more container query aware. it's a team responsibility for devs and design together. The "I can't do that in Figma" should not be a blocker. "Design component based", learn basic capabilities such as length units available in the browser. Know the medium you design for. #webexpo

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 28/05/2026

Starting the second day of #webexpo with some weird stuff in Javascript with @krasimir.bsky.social this is fun. 😃

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 27/05/2026

Yesterday I had the pleasure meeting @luckynkosi.bsky.social at #webexpo, we took a walk in the city together, now for his presentation I hope not to get attacked by a drone.😂

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 27/05/2026

It's interesting. I did a write-up on recreating my site recently with design tokens. Where I would use light-dark() directly in semantic tokens choose patterns. It's always great to see other approaches and strategies on the topic. Definitely left some food for thought. Thx Anastasiia. #webexpo

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Brecht De Ruyte @utilitybend.com · 27/05/2026

Also... Just checked out the marble hall. So nice! (Bit hot tho)

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