WRITING FOR A BETTER WEB
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roosmarijnvankessel
Drawing the holiday spirit — Interviewing Cinta Arribas
Based in a small city in Northern Spain, Cinta Arribas is an illustrator and visual artist with over ten years of professional experience. She studied Fine Arts in Salamanca and Kassel (Germany), and recently completed an artist residency in Washington, DC, through a program of the Spanish Embassy.
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Toto Castiglione, leilabyron
Best in WordPress Design: General Condition
General Condition’s new website is a study in atmosphere: slow, intentional, emotionally charged design brought to life with WordPress. In this edition of Best in WordPress Design, its founder, Jovan Lakić, shares the inspirations, challenges, and tools behind their narrative-driven digital world.
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Fernando Pérez, Marta Przeciszewska
Illustrations that scale: building a cohesive style for Woo
At Woo, we’ve been rethinking how illustrations can support both our product and our brand. The result is a new system designed to feel cohesive, flexible, and fast to work with. We’ve built a framework that balances functional clarity with expressive storytelling, giving us a style that adapts seamlessly across contexts.
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Dominic Camozzi
Smarter, More Open Podcasting with Pocket Casts
This past year at Pocket Casts, we focused on making discovery more relevant, libraries easier to browse, and adding new ways to support creators, alongside improvements to playback and accessibility. Every change reflects our belief that podcasting should remain open and centered on people, not platforms.
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Toto Castiglione
Pablo Honey on the “Daring Creativity. Daring Forever” podcast with Radim Malinic
Pablo Honey joins Radim Malinic on the “Daring Creativity. Daring Forever” podcast to explore what it really means to dare creatively.
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Dave Lockie
Content for fun vs. content for purpose: designing for two distinct modes of consumption
From AI assistants to digital platforms, how can we design for rapid mode switching in real life? Reflections about utilitarian and experiential content and why understanding both matters.
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Diana Costa
Craft meets community: designing for the Bedfordshire Bird Club
The most rewarding design projects emerge when passionate communities with a clear vision partner with technical experts to achieve something neither could accomplish alone. The Bedfordshire Bird Club embodied this perfect collaboration.
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Alicia Blázquez
From flat to feel
Long-held beliefs about simplicity, realism, and the role of emotion in digital design have evolved. Here’s a look at what’s new—and why it matters.
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leilabyron
Meet DesignEx: Design Operations at Automattic
Design at Automattic is over 70 designers covering dozens of products, supporting an open-source foundation. Our team includes product, brand, motion, and content designers working across 28 countries.
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Toto Castiglione
Automattic designers in Gràffica Magazine
Automattic designers Alicia Blázquez, Cris Busquets, and Jana Hernández are featured in Gràffica magazine, sharing how they design for millions while staying human-centered, and why inclusion and purpose matter in design at scale.
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Toto Castiglione
Creators in Focus: capturing self-expression at OFFF 2025
At OFFF 2025, we turned our booth into a working photo studio, capturing 350+ portraits, hundreds of conversations, and a shared celebration of creative identity.
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Noam Almosnino
Behind the scenes: How we iterate on UI copy
A behind-the-scenes look at how Automattic designers treat UI copy as a core design element—from first drafts to faster iteration with internal tools like Wordmattic. Learn how writing early, often, and in context shapes clearer, more human interfaces.
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The evolution of Woo: how the Woo design team reimagined a brand for 3 million merchants
The WooCommerce design team—now simply “Woo”—undertook a comprehensive visual identity overhaul, preserving the playful spirit that endeared them to millions of merchants worldwide and reflecting a more direct connection to e-commerce.
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Filippo Di Trapani
My unexpected journey with journaling
This post shares how journaling provides free therapy, offers creative expression, and much more. Whether you’re new to journaling or looking to refresh your practice, find inspiration and practical tips for making journaling work for you.
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Designing State of the Word Tokyo: heritage meets innovation
On December 16th, 2024, State of the Word 2024 took place at Tokyo Node in the heart of Japan’s capital city. Its striking architecture, with sleek lines and sophisticated spaces, created the perfect backdrop for an event that balanced tradition with innovation. Oh, and that was our vision for the art direction around the event.…
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Marina Verdu
Illustrating in Figma: tips and tricks
Marina Verdu explains how Figma empowers illustration workflows at WordPress VIP, highlighting collaborative features, essential plugins like ‘Blending Me’ and ‘Noise & Texture,’ and practical tips for creating consistent, high-quality visuals across digital platforms.
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Beyond templates: reimagining WordPress theme design
If you had asked me about WordPress years ago, I would have admitted its power but also expressed my reluctance to embrace it as a creative tool.
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Matt West
How sketching helps me develop ideas
Sketching isn’t about perfection—it’s about thinking through ideas and making them easier to share.
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Cli
Meet Marina Matijaca
We recently welcomed Marina to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this brief interview with her.
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Revamping Michael Pollan’s digital presence
Reimagining the online home of one of the most respected voices in food and health.
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Cris Busquets receives National Design Award
Cris Busquets has been awarded Spain’s National Design Award in the Young Design Professionals category—one of the country’s highest honors in the field.
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Monika Burman
Meet Aurora Pleguezuelo Hernandez
We recently welcomed Aurora to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this short interview with her.
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Matt West
Designing a faster local development experience for WordPress
Read about how our team designed a faster local development experience for WordPress, with our new local development app, Studio.
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Monika Burman
Meet Filippo Di Trapani
We recently welcomed Filippo to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this short interview with him.
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vanessa riley thurman
Empowering creativity: Verònica Fuerte and the Women at Work Podcast
In this interview, Verònica discusses the process of moving the Women at Work site to WordPress, her collaboration with Automattic, and the values that guide Hey’s work.
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Noam Almosnino
From idea to innovation: write brief with AI
Read how a side project turned into a product feature, and launched in just two months.
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Monika Burman
Space for life: a sabbatical story
Automattic gives employees a three month sabbatical every five years. Read this reflection from design program manger, Monika, on her recent sabbatical.
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The design hiring process at Automattic: a step-by-step guide
To help you navigate our hiring process, we’ve put together an overview and some practical advice on how to stand out and succeed.
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Dominic Camozzi
Year One at Day One
“When I first chatted with Kelly and found out I would join the Day One team, I knew it was the perfect fit.”
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Francisco Vera
Visiting Archivio Tipografico
Being a designer at Automattic requires traveling for WordCamps and work-related meetups several times a year. These journeys help us discover inspiration and nurture creativity by immersing us in new, diverse and vibrant graphic landscapes.
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vanessa riley thurman
Meet Jonathan Lee
We recently welcomed Jonathan to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this short interview with him.
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Beatriz Fialho
Moving from Squarespace to WordPress, a successful design story
Follow along on one designer’s path to creating a more flexible and user-friendly portfolio site with WordPress.
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vanessa riley thurman
Meet Saul Fougnier
We recently welcomed Saul to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this short interview with him.
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vanessa riley thurman
Best in WordPress Design: Paseo Studio
This is Best in WordPress Design. Our purpose is to highlight exceptional web design done with WordPress around the world. We feature selected sites, and share a brief conversation with the people who made them.
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Monika Burman
Meet Alicia Blázquez
We recently welcomed Alicia to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this short interview with her.
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The personalized workspaces of Automattic’s designers
Explore how Automattic’s designers craft personalized home workspaces that blend creativity, comfort, and functionality. From sunlit studios to cozy corners adorned with art, this post offers a glimpse into the diverse setups that support their distributed design team’s innovation and well-being.
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vanessa riley thurman
The 2024 Automattic Design Meetup
The Automattic Design team recently met up in Lake Como, Italy to connect, learn, and do some cool work together. Check it out!
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Beatriz Fialho, Rich Tabor
Pattern design best practices for designers
Well-crafted patterns are the backbone of a great user experience on any website. Check out the best practices that our Automattic Design team uses to make beautiful WordPress patterns.
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Jarosław Morawski, Francisco Vera
How to pack one bag for a meetup
A few tips for packing for travel as if it were a design problem.
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Cris Busquets
Year One at Automattic
I distinctly remember when I first talked with @pablohoneyhoney and @kellychoffman. Their passion for the craft and Automattic made me quickly realize that I wanted to work here.
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DIY Block Theme
Learn to use the Create Block Theme plugin, like our designers do, to build your own block theme.
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vanessa riley thurman
Best in WordPress Design: Bloom
This is Best in WordPress Design. Our purpose is to highlight exceptional web design done with WordPress around the world. We feature selected sites, and share a brief conversation with the people who made them.
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Crafting State of the Word 2023, Madrid edition
Dive deep into the visual direction for State of the Word 2023, hosted for the first time in Madrid, Spain.
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Monika Burman
Meet Nebojsa Jurcic
We recently welcomed Nebojsa to our Automattic Design team. Enjoy this short interview with him.
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vanessa riley thurman
2023 Year in Design
A look back at all the amazing things that the Automattic Design team accomplished together in 2023.
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Fernando Pérez
Unwrapping Day One’s new ribbon illustrations
Day One has expanded its brand into physical journals, using a versatile visual language of 3D ribbon illustrations. Read on to learn how the design team developed the brand.
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Introducing Twenty Twenty-Four
A behind-the-scenes look at Twenty Twenty-Four, the most expressive and capable WordPress default theme yet, alongside WordPress 6.4.
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vanessa riley thurman
Best in WordPress Design: Hey Studio
This is Best in WordPress Design. Our purpose is to highlight exceptional web design done with WordPress around the world. We feature selected sites, and share a brief conversation with the people who made them.
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L. Jeffrey Zeldman
The Next Generation of Web Layouts
Who will design the next generation of readable, writerly web layouts? Who will design them? Layouts for sites that are mostly writing. Designed by people who love writing. Where text can be engaging even if it isn’t offset by art or photography. Where text is the point. With well considered flexible typesetting, modular scaling, and readable measures across a full…
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Monika Burman
Best in WordPress Design: Fig Studio
This is Best in WordPress Design. Our purpose is to highlight exceptional web design done with WordPress around the world. We feature selected sites, and share a brief conversation with the people who made them.
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L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Automattic Women: Monika Burman
Welcome to Automattic Women—conversations with some of the remarkable women working all over the world to design and develop Automattic software and make the web a better place. Today’s interviewee is Monika Burman of the Designer Experience team. Who are you, and what do you do? I’m Monika, I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and…
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Twentieth year of WordPress, Designed
Read about how the Automattic Design team celebrated the WordPress 20th anniversary.
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Monika Burman
A Place of One’s Own, in Noho
Automattic is distributed first, but we love getting together in this magic space.
A FULLY DISTRIBUTED TEAM MAKING THE WEB A BETTER PLACE.
Women At Work Podcast
Automattic sponsored the Season 2 of Women At Work, a podcast about female creativity, leadership & feminism.
Automattic Design 