Ethan MarcotteModify

2025-03-06 12:00:00

I don’t even remember when this redesign started. The Sketch file (shh; shhhhhhh) says I started it all the way back in January of 2024, well over a year and one non-collapsed government ago. I did find some paper sketches older than that, so who knows. But for the better part of a last year, I’d been picking at the new design here and there, and just idk like happily lazing away amid colors and textures and type and weird layout ideas. Figured I’d get it out the door when it was, y’know, time to get it out the door.

Well, I suddenly find myself with a lot of time on my hands, so it seems to be time to get it out the door.

How’s that old saying go? “When the world’s on fire and the fascists are at your door, stop waffling and just finish your redesign.”

Pretty sure it’s something like that. More or less.

As it happens I quietly pushed the redesign live last Friday, and then hopped offline for a few days with old friends.¹ Since getting back online I’ve spent the last few days fixing bugs, finding new bugs, and rethinking some old design ideas. The site’s not finished, mind you — when will it ever be? — but it feels like something I can build upon.

And this isn’t something I typically say, but I find myself happy with so many bits of the new design: I’m excited to have a little blogroll again; I like the bloop-y effect when I’m scrolling down the journal on wider screens; I didn’t think I’d be able to build any of the more angular pieces of this design, and I’m glad (proud?) I figured them out.

Anyway. World’s on fire, but I have a clean(er) slate in front of me, and a whole bunch of ideas I’m excited to try. Might as well get to work.

A couple colophon-y things, which I’ll lodge here until I have an actual colophon:

• Untitled Sans and Tiempos Text, my old Klim Type favorites, are back. The display type is YouWorkForThem’s Vermont, which I adore for its fussy little terminals as much as its name.²
• The flower artwork began its life as a photograph from Avinash Bhat on Flickr, and I’m grateful they made it available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

This has been “Parker.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-02-18 12:00:00

Note: This post gets into the last few weeks of American politics. If that’s not your cup of tea, or if that’s a stressful topic for you, please feel free to skip this one. (Also, it’s a bit long. Sorry about that.)

Last week, I finished my tenure as a designer at 18F.

I want to state up front: I’m not leaving under a “deferred resignation.” I also wasn’t laid off. (Though it’s possible I almost was; more on that later.) Instead, I resigned from my position as a product designer, submitting two weeks’ notice…well, two weeks ago.

Before I get into any of that, I’d like to write a bit about 18F, and why it was so hard to leave.

While I was writing this post, I thought I’d revisit what I wrote when I joined 18F last May:

1. Every single person I’ve met this week — and I’ve met quite a few! — has been smart, kind, and really happy to be working where they do. As someone new to the organization, that’s so encouraging to see.
2. It’s, like, remarkably energizing to be around people who are really (really, really) passionate about making digital services work better for people.

Honestly, that holds up. Because really, the thread here is the people working at 18F, and the culture they’d built: I really, really liked showing up for work each morning. Everyone I met at 18F was inviting and kind, and excited to talk about what they were working on. (And just as crucially, what they did outside work.)

And my goodness, they were helpful — which, as a new kid joining the team, I’m always going to remember. Here’s one example: during my first month, I was grousing about some weird little computer issue, and a random coworker just offered to hop on a call to look at it with me. They hadn’t dealt with the issue before, and they definitely hadn’t dealt with me before, but they thought they might help a coworker out. And that impulse — maybe I can help someone out — sums up so many of my interactions with everyone at 18F. They were, and are, a remarkable group of people.

At the same time, I was proud of the work I was doing. Alongside my coworkers at 18F, I worked with client teams to help them define requirements, refine their designs, and build better products. I even got asked to pitch in on a small branding project, and I’d be the last person to call myself a brand designer. But I mention that because I was often asked to stretch myself, and every single time I felt safe trying something new — safe, and supported by my team. I can count on one hand the number of times over my career that I’ve felt that kind of safety at work. I doubt that’s true of every job in government, but I know it was true for me at 18F.

I know it sounds pat, but 18F was one of the best places I’ve ever worked. Until it wasn’t, and I felt I had to leave.

Before I dive in, here are a couple points that’ll become relevant:

• I was considered a probationary employee because I’d been employed by the government for less than a year. Probationary employees don’t have most of the protections afforded to “full” employees, and can be dismissed more easily.
• Due to some idiosyncrasies of how our roles were defined, many (most?) people in my organization were legally not eligible to join a union.

So. After last year’s election, I was trying to decide whether or not I could stay at the job. A far-right candidate had won the election¹, and was threatening to reshape the government into something more partisan, more regressive, and more autocratic. My job involved putting rectangles on screens, and couldn’t have been further from any kind of political influence or impact. But despite that, I didn’t know if I could let myself be part of that government, even in a small way. (Also, as you might have guessed: I was panicking.)

During that time, a friend suggested that while things were calm at work, I should write down some lines I wouldn’t want to cross: things I’d want to watch out for that, if they materialized, might be a reason to leave. This was wonderful advice, and I’m grateful to them for it. Equipped with a plan, even a small one, I started thinking through what my lines would be.

I’ll spare you the whole list, but I’ll share three of the entries.

1. First, I need to work remotely. If the incoming administration made good on its promise to end teleworking for federal workers, I’d likely have to find another job. (This is, of course, why “return to office” policies happen.)
2. The second line was whether I’d be asked to work on a project that could kill or surveil people. I know precisely what governments are capable of — for good and for ill. But one of the things that drew me to the work at 18F was that I understood they tried to weigh individual workers’ preferences when projects were staffed. I figured if that ever changed, and I was asked to work on something I was morally opposed to, it’d be time to leave.
3. The third was being asked to meet with someone who didn’t work for the government, and being asked to discuss what I did for work.

The first two were things I looked into when I was first interviewing at 18F: some of the basic criteria I was screening potential employers for. The third was driven at least in part by the election, and by the billionaire they were putting in charge of “government tech modernization.” I expected that if things went south, he’d just try to run the same horrible Twitter layoffs handbook, and bring in employees from his other companies to rank — and cull — workers.

But it wasn’t just about that. Many things started happening to the federal government after the inauguration, none of them good. While the administration was conducting its vicious rollback of civil liberties and publicly funded research, this billionaire’s so-called “department” was sweeping through various federal agencies, pushing aside career civil servants and the law to hoover up radioactively sensitive data — our data, bought and paid for with our tax dollars, I should add.² And from what I’d read the group was acting on dubious legal authority, and with even less oversight or transparency. I didn’t want to sit down with anyone involved in that, and pretend like any part of their work was lawful, legitimate, or moral.

Anyway. The list was a tremendous help; I’ll always be grateful to the friend who suggested it. But given the speed at which government typically moves, I assumed I’d have several months before I’d have to wrestle with any of these questions. If not longer.

(I know, I know. I’m in the future, too.)

A few weeks ago, a member of the new leadership announced they’d be reaching out to workers to discuss their recent “technical wins”, in order to better understand how the organization worked. The stress on “technical wins” to a cross-functional organization felt significant to me; it also felt significant that most of the sessions seemed to be getting scheduled with folks who’d only recently joined government — probationary employees.

Just to state the obvious, this isn’t what you do when you want to understand how your organization works; it is what you do when you’re preparing to slash the size of your workforce. As you might imagine, this caused no small amount of panic across the agency, including within 18F. The new leadership hadn’t communicated these plans to anyone before making their announcement, which left 18F’s own leaders and supervisors frantically working to fill in the information void.

Shortly after the announcement, I started hearing about folks who’d had their meetings, but that they didn’t meet with the director who said they’d be conducting the interviews. Instead, they found themselves on a call with people who wouldn’t say where they worked in government; in a few cases, some people wouldn’t disclose their last names, or any part of their names.

And while I was watching these reports trickle in, I got a calendar invitation for my own interview. From the first email announcing the meetings, I figured one of my lines was in danger of being crossed; I just figured I’d have more time.

With only a few hours before my interview, I did a quick overview of my options. It looked like this:

1. I could do the interview.
2. I could refuse to do the interview.
3. I could delay: call out sick, take a personal day, whatever.
4. I could resign.

The first item wasn’t really an option, as sitting down with this “department” wasn’t something I could let myself do. Refusing to participate would’ve likely been seen as insubordination by a probationary hire; delaying would’ve just been, well, delaying the inevitable. (It also could have been seen as insubordination.) My math would’ve been different if I wasn’t probationary or, even better, if I’d been allowed to join a union. But given my lack of labor protections, and the options available before me, leaving 18F — withholding my labor — felt like my best and only option. I called a meeting with my supervisor, and gave two weeks’ notice.

In a terrible coda, a large number of probationary employees were summarily let go at my agency just before my last day.

Leaving was the right call for me, but I’ll never feel good about the decision. I mean, there’s the grief angle: up until about a month ago, I was working on projects that felt like they mattered, and working alongside people who cared about helping government services work better for the public. A few months ago, I would’ve told you I’d like to stay there for years, which is not something I’ve said about any other place I’ve ever worked. I am incredibly sad to leave this job.

And look, being able to leave is, flatly, a privileged option: I can’t not work forever, but I can not work for a little bit. Most of my coworkers didn’t have that option. Some had just bought a house; some returned from parental leave, only to learn they might be losing the jobs they’d counted on to support their families.

I’m also angry at what was taken from me. At what’s being taken from all of us. I’ve watched a wonderful job, a wonderful place to work, a wonderful team get pulled apart by rich men in ill-fitting suits, each of them parroting the same talking points around “realignment” and “right-sizing”.³

But what’s happening right now is not about “government efficiency,” nor is it about “cost-cutting.” I would gently urge you to look at the net worth of the people who are telling you otherwise. After all, there is no financial analysis; no review of possible downsides, no weighing of potential negative impacts. There is no discussion of what could happen if our math is wrong? Or even more importantly, no consideration of who might be harmed?

Instead, as Anil Dash predicted, the billionaire’s so-called “efficiency” “department” is best understood as a sprawling form of procurement capture, in which a group of impossibly rich individuals are trampling over the regulations — and the federal workers — that stand between them and a deep, deep revenue stream: your tax dollars. And as they do, they’re making an explicitly fascist move to roll back rights for every marginalized community in the country — for anyone who doesn’t look like them, or who stands in their way.

So, yes. This is a wholesale attack on the American safety net, led by billionaires and far-right politicians who are frighteningly comfortable with fascism and autocracy. The last month has been called a coup by politicians, researchers, and watchdogs alike. I don’t want to diminish the harm these people will do — the harm they are doing. I also don’t want to downplay the terror of this moment, because lord knows I fucking feel it.

At the same time: what’s happening right now is also a labor story.

If the American government is slow-moving, it’s because rapid change is deadly when you’re talking about healthcare, social security checks, market regulations, food safety, or any of the other countless critical functions it performs. Those federal agencies are, quite simply, infrastructure. And as Deb Chachra showed in her excellent book, infrastructure is how a society invests in its future: in its ongoing economic, societal, and political stability.

In government, that infrastructure is built by laws, policies, and regulations. But regulations alone do not infrastructure make. Regulations require workers to become infrastructure: those workers who labor to understand new policies, how best to enact them, and then work to make them legible and understandable to the American public — and, yes, to enforce them. Without those federal workers, and their labor, these systems fall apart. And the architects of this assault on the federal workforce are keenly aware of that fact.

The last month has, flatly, been hell. But even so, I wouldn’t trade away my time at 18F for anything. It was a fantastic place to work, filled with genuine, hard-working people who cared for that work and for each other. Even when things got rough, I saw the leaders of 18F scramble to answer their team’s questions; I saw coworkers reaching out to support each other in countless little ways. All while ensuring they got their project work in on time. I saw something wonderful at work, in my work. I’m always going to be grateful for that, and to my coworkers.

Resources

If this story’s moved you, I hope it moves you to action. Because the workers I mention above quite literally need your support.

A few resources, if you’re interested:

• Wired has some good coverage on the layoffs I described above, and on the billionaire coup more generally.
• Labor Notes also has some indispensable coverage around this administration’s attacks on the federal workforce, and how organized labor is fighting back.
• The Working Families Party and Emily Amick both had some great primers on what it means to call your members of Congress, if that’s a thing you’re able to do.
• If you’re looking for other ways to get engaged, Mariame Kaba has pulled together a massive list of actions that are not protesting or voting.

This has been “Moving on from 18F.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-01-26 12:00:00

Hello, you. There’s a thing we used to do, way back when, where bloggers would write a post, and then tag in some other folks to see how they’d respond. I did a different challenge a few years back, and was delighted when Jon and Naz kindly tagged me for this latest one: to answer a set of questions about how I blog, and why.

So! Here I am, and happily.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

Everybody was doing it! When I got started in the tech industry, I think Scott Andrew LePera was one of the first bloggers I read who was writing about, well, what I was doing every single day. Through him I found Mark Pilgrim, Molly Holzschlag, Jeffrey Zeldman, Erin Kissane, Paul Ford, Dean Allen, and so many, many more. Every single one of them was posting industry news, links, opinions, and — this is the important bit — space for other writers, linking to other, newer voices onto their own sites.

It felt like a community, really. In those early days, it felt like home.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Last year, I switched from jekyll to Eleventy. I wrote up a few of the reasons I chose it, but: it’s fast, it’s flexible, and its community seems to be thriving. It’s early days yet, but it’s working pretty well so far.

Prior to that? Oh my goodness, let’s see. I started blogging on a home-rolled CMS, if you can call some frankly horrendous PHP and MySQL a “CMS.” A year or two after that, I switched over to WordPress.¹ A few years later, I used ExpressionEngine to launch my next blog. I tinkered with a few other platforms in those early days — I set up TextPattern (😢) for a side project; I worked with Movable Type when I was part of the Web Standards Project, and with Tumblr when I was at Editorially — but those are the main ones that got me started.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

I’m always writing in Markdown. New posts get created in a directory I’ve set up for drafts, and I’ll edit them in the text editor I use to work on my website.² If I have a longer post — something with a lot of moving parts, or something I know I’ll want to edit on my phone — I’ll work on it in Obsidian, which is easily my favorite writing environment since Editorially. But regardless of the app I’m using, I’ll work in that drafts directory until the post’s done; once it is, I’ll move it over into the “live” folder, and deploy my site to publish it.

Ultimately, I’d love to just work exclusively in Obsidian, with my posts auto-building as I write. This was all sparked by this demo I saw from the CEO of Obsidian, and at some point I’ll spend the time to get all of that wired up.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Oof. This is a hard one to answer.

In the early days, blogging was something I used to share: something ridiculous I’d read online, a weird little code snippet, or even a new technique I wanted to get in front of other people. Hell, sometimes I’d just gripe about the weather, or post some photos online. It was my own little Twitter before Twitter existed, really: have a thought, post a thought.

It’s hard for me to look at those old links now. There’s some cringing, to be sure, but also a little envy: I sometimes wish I felt comfortable writing so openly.

These days, my blogging feels a little…heavier? Definitely more circumspect. This site’s a mixture of the personal and the professional — and for me at least, the ratio feels skewed more toward the latter. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I suppose. But it does mean that when I’m writing, it’s about a professional milestone, some thoughts on the industry, or to work through something heavier.

Anger is a motivator as well, though I’m not proud to admit it. I wish the tech industry was better; I wish the world was better; right now, I sorely wish my country was better. This website’s one outlet I have to wish things were different, and to maybe dream of something better.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I’m somewhere between the two. My drafts don’t usually sit around too long, taking shape after a day or three. If I can get a post to a workable point, I’ll do a few editing passes before publishing.

Honestly, I wish I was a lot more casual about my writing here, but I’ve always felt really self-conscious about the words I’m putting online. I know, I know — this is “my” blog. But at the same time, I’m keenly aware there’s someone else who’ll read this. So: edits.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

It’s not a blog post qua blog post, but I think my favorite entry in the ol’ journal is the transcript of “The World-Wide Work”, my first talk on the need for unions in tech.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I’ve got a few things. Nothing especially thrilling, but:

• I’ve been working on a redesign for the better part of the last year. That’s not an indicator of its complexity or quality, mind: the last year’s just been a whole entire lot, and I haven’t had the time or the spoons to focus on my website.
• I want to move my newsletter off of Mailchimp and onto another service. I should’ve made the move after Mailchimp first announced they were going all-in on “artificial intelligence” nonsense, but again — spoons, time, &c.
• This one’s a bit random, but: I’d like to figure out how this whole ✌🏻ecommerce✌🏻 thing works! I’ve got a thing I’ll be selling soon — and at some point, maybe a few more things — and I’d love to set up a little storefront here.

No big platform shifts in the works, thankfully. The switch to Eleventy just happened, and I’d like to give it a year or two to see how it works out.

Who’s next?

I know how busy people are, especially while the world’s on fire. But if they’re game, I’d love to hear how anh, Katherine, Maya, Jacky, and Henry would answer these questions.

This has been “A challenge of blog questions.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-01-18 12:00:00

It’s cold out, and the sun’s hidden behind a flat, gray scrim. I look around the park. My brain immediately wants to make a comparison to the last time I was here for a rally — the last time things broke down. Back then, I was a tiny speck floating in an ocean of people. This time, I’d guess there are a few hundred attendees, maybe five or six hundred. When I think about the math, it hurts.

I then realized that my brain’s not exactly helping. Comparison’s the thief of joy, and all that. The air at the rally is casual, friendly. Toward the back of the crowd, small groups — friends, families, groups of chatting — are chatting. Many are laughing, their smiles bright; others are chanting, yelling, singing. I spot a couple to my right. I read them as a man and a woman, both much older than I am, and possibly married. She’s holding a sign I can’t quite read; he’s standing with his hands clasped behind his back, his figure a bit stooped. I wonder how many protests they’ve attended. I wonder how many more they’ll attend.

There’s a small stage at the center of the rally. A local elected official is speaking. She comes to politics through local organizing, and reminds the crowd that it’s okay to pay attention to your fear, to sit with it. But she reminds us that hope is an engine for fighting back. For getting your feet under you, for finding the people next to you, and — most crucially — for building something different. Something better.

I’m immediately and sharply glad I came.

After she leaves the stage, two speakers from a local trans and non-binary rights organization take her place. One of them speaks with clarity, precision, and more than a little fury. They’ll never take my joy, they say, their voice rising. We must never forget to dream: if we can dream it, we can build it; if we can build it, we can change it.

Some elected officials give perfectly fine speeches. As they leave the stage, they plug their Instagram accounts. I look at my watch.

I stay for a couple hours — I clap for the speakers; I holler when it’s appropriate; I cry when I’m moved, or scared about what’s coming — and then I head back to the subway. I have Ursula Franklin’s voice in my ears, and I get off a few stops early to pick up a nice cup of coffee.

I’m glad I went. I’m out of practice with showing up, and with raising my voice alongside others. I think, I’ll probably need to do more of that, and soon. I start crying again, but just a little. I feel like my feet are under me. I keep walking — toward whatever comes next, but also and always toward home.

This has been “Ames & Amherst.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2024-11-13 12:00:00

Earlier this year, following the closure of my publisher, I reacquired the rights to my three books. And as of last night, you can read the first two books — the second edition of Responsive Web Design, and Responsive Design: Patterns & Principles — online, right here on this very website. For free.

I have a lot of emotions about my publisher’s sudden closure, but I’m just thrilled I was able to rescue these books, and make them publicly available. And there are two people in particular who helped make it happen. First, Jeff Eaton’s Dancing Queen library made it possible for me to export my books’ contents into Markdown. Second, Mat Marquis’s book site builder was a helpful reference for me, an Eleventy naïf, in figuring out how to build these two little mini-sites. I’m deeply grateful to both Jeff and Mat for their work, and for making it possible for all of us authors to preserve our books.

Because I’m me, a few caveats.

First, these books are old. If you see any code, I hope you’ll remember it is extremely Of Its Time. These books were written when Internet Explorer was still a going concern, when flexbox support was relatively minimal, and CSS Grid was still but a glint in the W3C’s eye. The books’ principles are, I think, still incredibly sound, but I can recommend skimming the implementation details.

Somewhat related to that, the images aren’t currently retina-friendly. I might go diving into some old files at some point, and see if I can export sharper versions of that artwork. But with everything [gestures around] going on, that’s pretty low on my list of priorities.

Now, with that out of the way: because I’m me, a few emotions.

The process of getting these books online was, overall, tinged with melancholy. It always feels a bit weird to revisit old writing; doubly so when I think about how much easier things felt back then. And the books — those lovely yellow and orange paperbacks — don’t exist any more. It’s hard for me not to feel like putting the books online is a kind of lessening. That the books are, like, gone.

Of course, the books aren’t gone, not really. After all, I still have the memories associated with them: pecking away on my phone at the first draft of Responsive Web Design while I was riding the train to The Boston Globe’s offices; working with Jason, David, and Mandy on Editorially, which sparked all sorts of thoughts on seams and modularity in responsive design; getting a chance to work with editors the likes of Dan, Anna, Mandy, and Erin, and watching both books become so, so much better for it.

And of course, I have memories of all the people and places those books brought into my life. Chances are good you and I might’ve even chatted about your design work, and talked through a thorny design problem together. I’ll always be grateful to these little books for bringing those moments into my life. I’ll always be grateful to you for picking up a copy of one of these books, getting ideas from it, and making this whole “responsive design” thing real simply by making something with it.

So here I stand, considerably older than I was when I first wrote an article, and the two books that followed it. I’ll miss those days, but I’m just glad these books are still here. They’re just different than they used to be. I suppose I am too.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

This has been “Two books, no longer apart.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2024-11-06 12:00:00

Here are some things I know.

I know have a home. It’s a little home, framed with and bounded by four walls. Those four walls are draftier than I’d like, especially as the New England days get shorter. But they’re solid, those walls. I’m glad to have them. Especially today.

I know She is here. She took care of me today, held me together until I got my feet back under me. I don’t know that they’ll stay under me — I doubt they will — but we’ll see. I also don’t know what I did to deserve her, but I’m more grateful than I can say.

I have two little cats. They’re sweethearts, and seem to just know when someone needs them. They’re quick to cuddle, or to bring over their favorite toy. I know I’ve needed them a lot today. They seem to know, too.

I know I have friends. They’re the kindest, fiercest, sharpest people I’ve ever met. I went for a walk with one of them tonight; I spoke to another on the phone when I was walking home. Nothing was fixed, mind, but both of them helped me more than they probably know.

I know I have my fear, my despair, my anger, my dread, my heartbreak, and my grief. But I also have my love. I will say I’m not feeling much hope right now — but maybe it’ll come back.

I know I’m still here.

What’s more, I know you’re here, too. Whatever happens next, we’ll find our way together.

And I know that counts for something.

This has been “A catalog.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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