Blog | Lara Schenck

November 10, 2018 in Monsters

Most popular monster so far

This monster made an appearance as a sticker, and it has been the most popular so far. Just look at that sweet face!

Blue smirking monster with large eyes

November 3, 2018 in Findings, Inspiration

[Book Rec] Creative Quest by Questlove (a.k.a. my new spirit guide)

Creative Quest could not have come at a better time for me. It's essentially a holistic guidebook to being creative, and the concepts have literally applied to every aspect of my life. If you're a creative person and looking to put some more energy into developing that side of yourself, I can't recommend it enough!

October 31, 2018 in Thoughts

Disappointing Pho

I sit in a Vietnamese restaurant in Los Feliz, and am feeling the after effects of good times at the company Halloween party last night. It is a new ritual of mine to seek out pho whenever I am dealing with after effects of good times. When I began this […]

October 31, 2018 in Monsters

Squidward-esque monster

I drew this monster for a slide about how "Naming things is hard" in CSS. It looks a bit like Squidward from Spongebob.

A light blue monster with four legs, a tail, crazy eyes and a long nose

October 25, 2018 in Thoughts

Accessibility in the real world: One step at a time

Most of the websites I work on at work are not accessible and won't be any time soon. I had a bit of a realization this week about how to deal with that – accessibility doesn't have to be all or nothing. One step at a time.

October 22, 2018 in Thoughts, Updates

Designgineering Chronicles [WiH]: The Third Month

It's time for the third installment of Designgineering Chronicles! This one is a long one and written in major haste, so buckle up. Lots of good things about job titles, CSS standards, JavaScript, perfectionism, and the joys of refactoring.

October 11, 2018 in Monsters

Likeable, 3-eyed monster

This monster appears on the slide where I have FizzBuzz written in CSS. What a friendly face!

An orange monster with 3 eyes, peaking from behind the side of the image border

October 10, 2018 in Monsters

A helpful monster

Look at this gentle giant, giving some friends a ride somewhere. How nice.

October 8, 2018 in Tutorials+Tips

.u-glue: A positioning pattern (algorithm? API?)

.u-glue is a CSS utility class (or what I would call an algorithm) that provides an API for positioning an element absolutely over another element. We are using it at PMC, and it's proven a useful model!

October 7, 2018 in Research, Thoughts

CSS is a Declarative, Domain-Specific Programming Language

Over the past year, I've been giving a talk called The Algorithms of CSS, originally created for CSSConf EU. This post covers the first part of my presentation, and breaks down how CSS fits into the categories of programming languages.

A grey, bording CSS transforming into a blue, exciting CSS

September 14, 2018 in Inspiration, Links

[Book Rec] How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

I now realize my historic aversion to math is due to bad math education. Math is so cool and I want to learn more of it, thanks to this book!

September 11, 2018 in Monsters

Future water monster

This is a water monster, and for one reason or another, it represents the future.

September 11, 2018 in Projects, Updates

Designgineering Chronicles [WiH]: The Second Month

This is the second in a potentially ongoing series about my work at PMC as a Design Engineer. This month was full of lessons learned about working at a big company, building out a pattern library, and an exciting foray into Node.

A rough drawing of Lara with three thought bubbles.

September 10, 2018 in Monsters

Possibly elderly monster

I think my late grandfather is channeled in this monster – he was a jokester, to be sure.

September 10, 2018 in Thoughts

A quick take on CSS drama 🔥

I've been somewhat checked out of Twitter, etc. for the past week and returned to a fresh round of CSS drama. Here's my take: it's noise.

August 19, 2018 in Inspiration, Links

Email newsletters I enjoy

I'm really loving the medium of trustworthy email newsletters lately – here is a compendium of my favorite weekly-ish ones, both within the web dev sphere but also outside it.

Drawing of different colored envelopes surrounded by stars and hearts

August 11, 2018 in Projects, Updates

Designgineering Chronicles [WiH]: The First Month

This post is a summary of what I've been working on at PMC as a "Design Engineer". Note that it is written in haste (WiH)!

August 7, 2018 in Links, Research

Resources about Front-end Architecture and Design Systems, etc.

I've been researching design systems lately, and this is an evolving list of the resources I've found particularly resonant for my purposes. Have anything to add?

August 5, 2018 in Thoughts, Updates

How’s it going, Lara?

Things are going *really well* for me right now, and that calls for a blog post! This one is much more personal than my posts usually are, but it's healthy to open up a bit now and again, right?

A selfie while riding my bike!

July 15, 2018 in Research, Tutorials+Tips

Browser Mechanics In My Own Words, Part 2: The Browser is An Interpreter

The code we humans write cannot be read by computers – it must be translated into machine code. Compilers and interpreters do that, and the browser is an interpreter!

July 10, 2018 in Ideas, Links, Thoughts

What is programming, anyway? – Felienne @ NDC London

What is programming, anyway? I just love, love, love this talk from Felienne from earlier this year. It both affirms a ton of my own thoughts, and poses a wonderful, more inclusive alternative to "engineering" for talking about what we do as programmers.