Get the Core Right and the Resilient Code Will Follow

More often than not, front-end developers will focus purely on improving their technical skills. Andy is going to show you a better way by demonstrating how you can produce simpler, more resilient codebases by improving your planning and core skills. Specifically improving how you provide and receive feedback from designer colleagues.

Maintaining and Modernising CSS

In recent years, updates in CSS have given us many exciting possibilities for creating modern, dynamic web experiences. Yet, for many developers, the day-to-day reality often involves working within the constraints of legacy codebases.

In her talk, Ana will explore practical strategies for navigating the challenges of maintaining and modernising legacy CSS. Is refactoring an option? What are the pros and cons of this? How do we approach stakeholders? And if refactoring is not an option, how do we prioritise and initiate changes, measure improvements and quick wins? Ana will share lessons from past experiences and look forward to what’s ahead.

Shit You Should Care About

You know how some chats feel like they’re being held hostage by a PowerPoint deck? Well, this isn’t that. In this chat, Lucy Blakiston – co-founder of Shit You Should Care About and author of Make It Make Sense – is sitting down with her long-time friend and fandom expert Sacha Judd for a conversation about the internet, identity, and everything in between.

Together, they’ll dig into:

• What it actually means to live online in 2025
• Why building for community matters more than chasing clout
• The fandom-to-founder pipeline
• How digital media survives (or doesn’t?) in the age of AI

Art in Dusty Places

Every year a city of 75,000 people is built in the middle of a dry lake bed which is in the middle of the Black Rock Desert which is in the middle of nowhere in Northern Nevada in the USA. Black Rock City exists ephemerally on a substrate of an ancient lake bed that is an unhealthy and caustic mix of alkaline salts and fine minerals laid out perfectly flat for miles in all directions. The smallest movement of air raises the dust, a breeze necessitates eye protection, a wind creates a whiteout so complete you can experience vertigo. The dust coats everything and everyone.

It is an environment naturally devoid of the influences of contour, contrast, color, liquid water, animal or plant life. In this setting humans arrive for a month of building and 10 days of existing. Then in effigy it is all burned to the ground. With no other natural influences the emergent culture is unique and decidedly humanistic. Life can become so amplified that the world outside is referred to as analog. Any day at This Thing in The Desert is a practice between survival and self-actualisation and like no other day lived. And it comes with two constants: Dust and Art.

Start at the End

There’s a many-headed dragon currently casting a long shadow over our futures. Sometimes it reveals itself as climate change, biodiversity loss, the erosion of democratic values or the enshittification of our digital lives. You don’t have to look far for a bad news story. You wouldn’t be alone in feeling frozen and unsure about how you can make a difference.

But there’s some really good news. Did you know that working around creativity and digital tech gives you immense super powers. Ones you probably don’t even know you have? Those knee-deep in fighting for systems change are screaming out for you to bring this talent to bear.

For you are the ultimate purveyors of imagination - a most powerful and hopeful weapon that when used wisely can turn the tide of decline. A total dragon slayer. Some might say that the crises we’re living through are caused by a crisis of imagination. We simply don’t know the power of sharing possible, positive alternatives.

The wild promises of the early distributed internet were a master stroke in imagination. People were inspired and empowered to try and bring their maddest ideas to the world, and amazing things happened, and happened quickly. We’ve come a long way since then. It’s time we step into our possible futures and dare to imagine a bold, regenerative digital world for all. It’s going to be amazing. Let’s start at the end.