Ariel Salminen
@arielsalminen.com
Design systems architect • Author of various open source tools • A girl who lost her heart somewhere in California 🧡 • Mainly posting about design systems, web components & the web platform.
📮 https://arielsalminen.com
📍 Helsinki, Finland
👩🏻🦰 She/her
📮 https://arielsalminen.com
📍 Helsinki, Finland
👩🏻🦰 She/her
Pinned
Ariel Salminen
@arielsalminen.com
· Mar 25
Ariel Salminen
Hello, I’m Ariel Salminen, a Design Systems Architect from Helsinki, Finland with 20 years of experience helping companies build tools for the web platform.
arielsalminen.com
New website launch day! 📮
I handcrafted a super simple new site for myself to better showcase what I do and have a future home for experiments I may want to tinker with.
Designed in the browser using HTML, CSS, and a tiny bit of plain JavaScript. Powered by @11ty.dev as usual:
arielsalminen.com
I handcrafted a super simple new site for myself to better showcase what I do and have a future home for experiments I may want to tinker with.
Designed in the browser using HTML, CSS, and a tiny bit of plain JavaScript. Powered by @11ty.dev as usual:
arielsalminen.com
Last week booked almost one month off for an upcoming Christmas break and a part of me keeps thinking *wait, what, am I actually allowed to do this now*
December 8, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Last week booked almost one month off for an upcoming Christmas break and a part of me keeps thinking *wait, what, am I actually allowed to do this now*
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
The link goes to this page, Import Modes section.
help.figma.com/hc/en-us/art...
The scheme announcement and what I thought previously was that it was an enterprise-only feature... In reading this page there are a few gotchas for us folks who have been living in token land for a while now...
help.figma.com/hc/en-us/art...
The scheme announcement and what I thought previously was that it was an enterprise-only feature... In reading this page there are a few gotchas for us folks who have been living in token land for a while now...
Modes for variables
Before you Start
Who can use this feature
Anyone on
Education, Professional, Organization, and...
help.figma.com
December 8, 2025 at 3:55 PM
The link goes to this page, Import Modes section.
help.figma.com/hc/en-us/art...
The scheme announcement and what I thought previously was that it was an enterprise-only feature... In reading this page there are a few gotchas for us folks who have been living in token land for a while now...
help.figma.com/hc/en-us/art...
The scheme announcement and what I thought previously was that it was an enterprise-only feature... In reading this page there are a few gotchas for us folks who have been living in token land for a while now...
Very late to the party, but if looking at the new Figma features, I think I’m most excited about the ability to _finally_ import code based components into Figma (and not the other way around). Have dreamed of this since 2016 (helloo, remember react-sketchapp???).
December 8, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Very late to the party, but if looking at the new Figma features, I think I’m most excited about the ability to _finally_ import code based components into Figma (and not the other way around). Have dreamed of this since 2016 (helloo, remember react-sketchapp???).
Starting the weekend with a decent cup of coffee & building demos + writing about SSR for Web Components. This is covered way too little anywhere online imho. Especially since there’re so many ways to approach it.
December 6, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Starting the weekend with a decent cup of coffee & building demos + writing about SSR for Web Components. This is covered way too little anywhere online imho. Especially since there’re so many ways to approach it.
Saw this random t-shirt online and I obviously *needed* it.
December 5, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Saw this random t-shirt online and I obviously *needed* it.
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
A bit of a vulnerable post by me but we need your help to get us through what has been a more difficult period than 2020.
It would be really appreciated if you could read and share in your networks too 💛
bell.bz/its-been-a-v...
It would be really appreciated if you could read and share in your networks too 💛
bell.bz/its-been-a-v...
It’s been a very hard year - Andy Bell
Unlike a lot of places in tech, my company, Set Studio/Piccalilli has no outside funding. Bootstrapped is what the LinkedIn people say, I think. It’s been a hard year this year. A very hard year...
bell.bz
November 27, 2025 at 4:23 PM
A bit of a vulnerable post by me but we need your help to get us through what has been a more difficult period than 2020.
It would be really appreciated if you could read and share in your networks too 💛
bell.bz/its-been-a-v...
It would be really appreciated if you could read and share in your networks too 💛
bell.bz/its-been-a-v...
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
Our Black Friday deals are now live!
Save £60 on *all courses* and everyone who buys a course during this period will be given a coupon code that they can use to get a 50% discount off future course purchases at any time.
piccalilli.link/black-friday...
Save £60 on *all courses* and everyone who buys a course during this period will be given a coupon code that they can use to get a 50% discount off future course purchases at any time.
piccalilli.link/black-friday...
Premium Courses
Expansive, high quality education to make you a better developer and designer. Join thousands of others in boosting your career opportunities.
piccalilli.link
November 25, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Our Black Friday deals are now live!
Save £60 on *all courses* and everyone who buys a course during this period will be given a coupon code that they can use to get a 50% discount off future course purchases at any time.
piccalilli.link/black-friday...
Save £60 on *all courses* and everyone who buys a course during this period will be given a coupon code that they can use to get a 50% discount off future course purchases at any time.
piccalilli.link/black-friday...
Saw a dream last night where me, @darn.es & @wicky.nillia.ms were building watch faces with CSS (🤷♀️) and competing who can build the most complicated one with as little code as possible 🙃
November 25, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Saw a dream last night where me, @darn.es & @wicky.nillia.ms were building watch faces with CSS (🤷♀️) and competing who can build the most complicated one with as little code as possible 🙃
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
Alternate alt text...
[left, ariel's design systems]
[right, dave's design systems]
[left, ariel's design systems]
[right, dave's design systems]
November 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Alternate alt text...
[left, ariel's design systems]
[right, dave's design systems]
[left, ariel's design systems]
[right, dave's design systems]
I have today reached a new level in the game called never-ending job of selling design systems
November 13, 2025 at 6:05 PM
I have today reached a new level in the game called never-ending job of selling design systems
Found a new space to work on my bicycles 😍
November 13, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Found a new space to work on my bicycles 😍
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
i made a pillow for our phones - turns on do not disturb when you lay your phone on top
November 12, 2025 at 8:41 PM
i made a pillow for our phones - turns on do not disturb when you lay your phone on top
React made me re-render my life choices
November 12, 2025 at 3:16 PM
React made me re-render my life choices
Looks like I may have finally found budget to hire *a person* to help me on design systems stuff. 🥳
November 12, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Looks like I may have finally found budget to hire *a person* to help me on design systems stuff. 🥳
Celebrated two years together yesterday. My boyfriend had written me a love letter. And I couldn’t even finish the first sentences before bursting into tears. Had to read the rest after our dinner. Gosh, I love him so much.
November 12, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Celebrated two years together yesterday. My boyfriend had written me a love letter. And I couldn’t even finish the first sentences before bursting into tears. Had to read the rest after our dinner. Gosh, I love him so much.
Being real pro here and creating music for my monthly design system video presentations now. AMA
November 11, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Being real pro here and creating music for my monthly design system video presentations now. AMA
I have this routine… in the mornings; I sit in the bed with coffee, stare at the sunrise. Like right now. And I switch on the discover feature from my music player. Keep on listening to songs I’ve never heard of. Until I hear something so magnificent that I feel shivers everywhere. And then.
October 17, 2025 at 5:55 AM
I have this routine… in the mornings; I sit in the bed with coffee, stare at the sunrise. Like right now. And I switch on the discover feature from my music player. Keep on listening to songs I’ve never heard of. Until I hear something so magnificent that I feel shivers everywhere. And then.
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
View transitions are in every browser now ✨
Firefox now supports view transitions, the command and commandfor HTML attributes, and the moveBefore() method.
www.firefox.com/en-US/firefo...
www.firefox.com/en-US/firefo...
Firefox 144.0, See All New Features, Updates and Fixes
www.firefox.com
October 14, 2025 at 6:41 PM
View transitions are in every browser now ✨
“I have not been working on planning [a design systems infrastructure] this week.”
October 10, 2025 at 5:36 PM
“I have not been working on planning [a design systems infrastructure] this week.”
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
half of tech is people mindlessly going "ooh shiny object" at tech stacks and visual design without stopping to ask what actual problem is being solved (or created)
September 21, 2025 at 10:10 PM
half of tech is people mindlessly going "ooh shiny object" at tech stacks and visual design without stopping to ask what actual problem is being solved (or created)
Seems like I have not been the only one cancelling my disney subscription over the past week 🥲
September 21, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Seems like I have not been the only one cancelling my disney subscription over the past week 🥲
This thing arrived today.
September 19, 2025 at 2:09 PM
This thing arrived today.
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
Focus rings! Plural! I wrote for @piccalil.li about how to create a branded double ring focus effect that is dynamically generated based on the interactive element's text color. piccalil.li/blog/taking-...
Taking a shot at the double focus ring problem using modern CSS
A double focus ring is really useful in general but especially so with complex, themed systems. Eric Bailey shows us how to develop a really smart system, using modern CSS.
piccalil.li
September 18, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Focus rings! Plural! I wrote for @piccalil.li about how to create a branded double ring focus effect that is dynamically generated based on the interactive element's text color. piccalil.li/blog/taking-...
Reposted by Ariel Salminen
hiya. figma is a fucking terrible source of truth. if you're building one of the 142,000 AI-powered design system tools out there right now, binding your 'truth' to a proprietary file format in a proprietary platform from an org that’s showing some shaky signs is just extremely Not The Way™.
September 18, 2025 at 11:31 AM
hiya. figma is a fucking terrible source of truth. if you're building one of the 142,000 AI-powered design system tools out there right now, binding your 'truth' to a proprietary file format in a proprietary platform from an org that’s showing some shaky signs is just extremely Not The Way™.