Podcast Awesome
On Podcast Awesome we talk to members of the Font Awesome team about icons, design, tech, business, and of course, nerdery.
🎙️ Podcast Awesome is your all-access pass into the creative engine behind Font Awesome — the web’s favorite icon toolkit. Join host Matt Johnson and the Font Awesome crew (and friends) for deep dives into icon design, front-end engineering, software development, healthy business culture, and a whole lot of lovingly-rendered nerdery.
From technical explorations of our open-source tooling, chats with web builders, icon designers, and content creators, with the occasional gleeful rants about early internet meme culture, we bring you stories and strategies from the trenches of building modern web software — with a healthy dose of 80s references and tech dad jokes.
🎧 Perfect for:
- Icon design and content-first thinking
- Creative process and collaborative design
- Work-life balance in tech
- Remote team culture and async collaboration
- Internet history, meme archaeology, and other nerd ephemera
🧠 Come for the design wisdom, stay for the deep meme cuts and beautifully crafted icons.
Podcast Awesome
Web Awesome Has Landed: Here’s How to Stop Starting From Scratch
Episode Summary
What does it really take to ship something as powerful, polished, and downright magical as Web Awesome? In this episode of Podcast Awesome, Matt sits down with Lindsay and Cory, the dynamic duo behind the official launch of Web Awesome. Together, they peel back the curtain on how the team brought a customizable design system to life (without summoning any cursed CSS incantations).
From the slick Theme Builder to the deeply thoughtful Figma integration, from production-ready patterns to future-forward prototyping dreams, this convo is packed with insights for devs, designers, and nerds of all kinds. Get the scoop on stretch goals, community feedback, and why starting with a “sh*tty first draft” is actually a power move.
Oh! And they may or may not be plotting a future where we don’t even need Figma anymore. Gasp!
What We Cover in This Episode:
🛠 The design magic behind the Theme Builder
🎨 Patterns and why you shouldn’t reinvent the checkout form
🧩 The current state of Figma files — and where they’re headed
🧪 Bridging the gap between prototyping and real code
🔮 A sneak peek at future stretch goal components (hello, toasts and video!)
⚡ How Web Awesome + Eleventy = your new dream dev stack
🗣 Why your newbie feedback matters more than you think
Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome & introductions
01:45 – Life after launch: relief or revving up?
03:30 – Making the Theme Builder powerful and friendly
05:40 – Patterns that just work (and why that's a good thing)
07:30 – Balancing usability and delightful surprises
08:15 – Figma files, MVP vibes, and real feedback
10:20 – The future of theming via Figma plugins
12:00 – Stretch goal components: what’s shipped and what’s next
14:30 – Why prototyping with code might replace Figma
16:45 – Web Awesome meets Eleventy: the ultimate team-up
19:00 – Templates, page builders, and lowering the barrier to entry
20:30 – Why new users’ feedback is gold
22:00 – How to connect with the team & share your experience
Links & Resources
🌐 [Web Awesome](https://webawesome.com)
📣 [Join the Community](https://webawesome.com/community)
🧵 [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/webawesome/webawesome/discussions)
📬 Email: [help@webawesome.com](mailto:help@webawesome.com) / [hello@webawesome.com](mailto:hello@webawesome.com)
💬 Join us on Discord – link on the community page!
🧠 Learn more about [Jacob’s Law](https://lawsofux.com/jakobs-law/)
🎁 Don’t forget: 20% off Web Awesome Pro until Nov 19th!
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