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Part of me can’t believe I’m writing this article. Applying the insights of Leonardo da Vinci or Saul Bass to web design is more my groove, but sometimes you simply have to write about spreadsheets. You have to advocate for them. Because someone should.

In a checkered career spanning copywriting, journalism, engineering, and teaching, I’ve seen time and time again how powerful and useful spreadsheets are in all walks of life. The cold, hard truth is that you — yes, you — likely have an enormous amount to gain by understanding how spreadsheets work. And, more importantly, how they can work for you.

That’s what this piece is about. It’s a rallying cry, with examples of spreadsheets’ myriad uses and how they can actually, in the right circumstances, be the bedrock of altogether inspiring, lovely things.

Cellular Organisms

Spreadsheets have been around for thousands of years. Papyrus remnants have been discovered from as far back as 4,600 BC. Their going digital in the late ‘70s was a major factor in the rise of personal computing. Much is (rightly) made of the cultural transformation brought about by the printing press. The digital spreadsheet, not so much.

For as long as people have had projects and data to organize, spreadsheets have been indispensable. They were the original databases.

Spreadsheets don’t always get a lot of attention these days. For organization and workflow, we usually find ourselves in the worlds of Trello, Jira, or GitHub Projects. Datasets live in Oracle, MongoDB, and the like. There are good reasons for these services emerging — everything has its place — but

I do get the sense that specialized tooling causes us to skip over the flexibility and power that today’s spreadsheet editors provide.

This is especially true for smaller projects and ones in their early stages. Yes, sometimes only a huge database will do, but often spreadsheets are more than fit for purpose.

Benefits

What makes spreadsheets so great? We’ll get into a few real-world examples in a second, but several qualities hold true. They include the following:

• Collaboration
  Cloud-based editors like Google Sheets give groups of people a space in which to collaborate on data. They can serve as a middle ground for people working on different parts of the same project.
• Structure
  It’s inherent to spreadsheets that they’ll get you thinking about the ‘shape’ of the information you’re dealing with. In the same way that a blank piece of paper invites fluidity of thought, tables coax out frameworks — and both have their place
• Flexibility
  Spreadsheets can evolve in real time, which is especially useful during the formative stages of a project when the shape of the ‘data’ is still being established. Adding a field is as simple as naming a column, and the ability to weave in formulas makes it easy to infer other values from the ones you have. With stuff like the Google Sheets API, you can even scrape data directly from the spreadsheet
• Power
  You’d be surprised how much you can do in spreadsheets. Sometimes, you don’t even need bespoke dashboards; you can do it all in the editor. From data visualization to pivot tables, spreadsheet editors come with a bunch of powerful out-of-the-box features.
• They translate into other data formats
  Spreadsheets are one small jump from the mighty CSV. When the time is right, spreadsheets can still become raw data if you want them to.

Such is the flexibility and power of spreadsheets, and what’s listed here is scratching the surface. Their fundamental strength of organizing data has made them useful for thousands of years, while contemporary enhancements have taken them to the next level.

Case Studies

Below are a few examples from my own experiences that showcase these benefits in the real world. They’re obviously slanted towards my interests, but hopefully, they illustrate the usefulness of spreadsheets in different contexts.

Galaxies (Of The Guardian)

I work as a software engineer at Guardian News & Media, a place where 10% of the time, i.e., one work day every two weeks, is yours to spend on independent learning, side projects, and so on, is part of the working culture. An ongoing project of mine has been Galaxies (of the Guardian), a D3-powered org chart that represents departments as a series of interrelated people, teams, and streams.

What you see above is powered by information stored and edited in spreadsheets. A lambda scraps departmental information using the aforementioned Google Sheets API, then reformats into a shape Galaxies plays nicely with.

This approach has had several benefits. The earliest iterations of Galaxies were only possible because there was already a spreadsheet being maintained by those who needed to keep track of who worked where. Techies and non-techies alike are able to update information easily, and it is transparent to anyone who works inside the organization.

For anyone interested, I wrote a piece about how Galaxies works on the Guardian engineering blog. Suffice it to say here, spreadsheets were — and remain — the engine of the whole thing.

Food Bank Britain

My background is in journalism, and I still freelance in my own time. As my coding skills have improved, I’ve naturally gravitated towards data journalism, even teaching it for a year at my old journalism school.

Spreadsheets are inseparable from a lot of modern journalism — and, indeed, copyrighting in general. The digital world is awash with data, and good luck making sense of it without a working knowledge of spreadsheets.

For example, a piece I wrote for the Byline Times about foodbanks earlier this year simply wouldn’t have been possible without spreadsheets. It was by collating data from the Trussell Trust, the Independent Food Aid Network, and national census reports that I was able to map out the sheer scale of the UK’s food bank network.

Granted, the map is more visually engaging. But then that’s the idea. It’s the same information, just presented more pointedly.

There are plenty of other instances of spreadsheets being instrumental at the Guardian alone. Typerighter, the newspaper’s automated house style checker, began life as a subeditor’s spreadsheet. User research and bug tracking for the new Feast cooking app, which I worked on during its formative stages, was tracked and discussed in spreadsheets.

And, of course, countless pieces of quality journalism at the Guardian and beyond continue to be powered by them.

Another Cell In The Table

If this piece has got you to at least consider learning more about spreadsheets and spreadsheet editors, you’re in luck. There are countless free learning resources available on the web. Here are a few excellent beginner videos to help you on your way:

• Google Sheets Tutorial for Beginners
• How to use Pivot Tables in Google Sheets
• Excel Tutorial for Beginners
• Pivot Table Excel Tutorial

As for spreadsheet editors, the big three these days are probably Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, and LibreOffice Calc (for the open source devotees out there). They all work much the same way. And as you get comfortable with their functionality, new avenues will open.

Data is the lifeblood of the modern web, and spreadsheets remain one of the most accessible, flexible ways to organize, analyze, and share it. As I hope the examples I’ve shared with you show, spreadsheets aren’t inherently boring. They can be, but when used in the right ways, they become the engines of dynamic, impactful work.

The way they go is up to you.

Seeing a lot more headlines decrying JavaScript and pumping up PHP. Always interesting to see which direction the front-end zeitgeist is leaning.

Quick Hit #21 originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

For the past two months, all my livelihood has gone towards reading, researching, understanding, writing, and editing about Anchor Positioning, and with many Almanac entries published and a full Guide guide on the way, I thought I was ready to tie a bow on it all and call it done. I know that Anchor Positioning is still new and settling in. The speed at which it’s moved, though, is amazing. And there’s more and more coming from the CSSWG!

That all said, I was perusing the last CSSWG minutes telecon and knew I was in for more Anchor Positioning when I came to the following resolution:

Whenever you are comparing names, and at least one is tree scoped, then both are tree scoped, and the scoping has to be exact (not subtree) (Issue #10526: When does anchor-scope “match” a name?)

Resolutions aren’t part of the specification or anything, but the strongest of indications about where they’re headed. So, I thought this was a good opportunity not only to take a peek at what we might get in anchor-scope and touch on other interesting bits from the telecon.

Remember that you can subscribe and read the full minutes on W3C.org. 🙂

What’s anchor-scope?

To register an anchor, we can give it a distinctive anchor-name and then absolutely positioned elements with a matching position-anchor are attached to it. Even though it may look like it, anchor-name doesn’t have to be unique — we may reuse an anchor element inside a component with the same anchor-name.

<ul>
   <li>
	<div class="anchor">Anchor 1</div>
	<div class="target">Target 1</div>
   </li>
   <li>
	<div class="anchor">Anchor 2</div>
	<div class="target">Target 2</div>
   </li>
   <li>
	<div class="anchor">Anchor 3</div>
	<div class="target">Target 3</div>
   </li>
</ul>

However, if we try to connect them with CSS,

.anchor {
  anchor-name: --my-anchor;
}

.target {
  position: absolute;
  position-anchor: --my-anchor;
  position-area: top right;
}

We get an unpleasant surprise where instead of each .anchor have their .target positioned at its top-right edge, meaning they all pile up on the last .anchor instance. We can see it better by rotating each target a little. You’ll want to check out the next demo in Chrome 125+ to see the behavior:

The anchor-scope property should make an anchor element only discoverable by targets in their individual subtree. So, the prior example would be fixed in the future like this:

.anchor {
  anchor-name: --my-anchor;
  anchor-scope: --my-anchor;
}

This is fairly straightforward — anchor-scope makes the anchor element available only in that specific subtree. But then we have to ask another question: What should the anchor-scope own scope be? We can’t have an anchor-scope-scope property and then an anchor-scope-scope-scope and so on… so which behavior should it be?

This is what started the conversation, initially from a GitHub issue:

When an anchor-scope is specified with a , it scopes the name to that subtree when the anchor name is “matching”. The problem is that this matching can be interpreted in at least three ways: (Assuming that anchor-scope is a tree-scoped reference, which is also not clear in the spec):

1. It matches by the ident part of the name only, ignoring any tree-scope that would be associated with the name, or
2. It matches by exact match of the ident part and the associated tree-scope, or
3. It matches by some mechanism similar to dereferencing of tree-scoped references, where it’s a match when the tree-scope of the anchor-scope-name is an inclusive ancestor of the tree-scope of the anchor query.

And then onto the CSSWG Minutes:

TabAtkins: In anchor positioning, anchor names and references are tree scoped. The anchor-scope property that scopes, does not say whether the names are tree scoped or not. Question to decide: should they be?

TabAtkins: I think the answer should be yes. If you have an anchor in a shadow tree with a part involved, then problems result if anchor scopes are not tree scoped. This is bad, so I think it should be tree scoped sounds pretty reasonable makes sense to me as far as I can understand it 🙂

This solution of the scope of scoping properties expanded towards View Transitions, which also rely on tree scoping to work:

khush: Thinking about this in the context of view transitions: in that API you give names and the tree scope has to be the same for them to match. There is another view transitions feature where I’m not sure if the spec says it’s tree scoped

khush: Want to make sure that feature is covered by the more general resolution

TabAtkins: Proposed more general resolution: whenever you are comparing names, and at least one is tree scoped, then both are tree scoped, and the scoping has to be exact (not subtree)

So the scope of anchor-scope is tree-scoped. Say that five times fast!

RESOLVED: whenever you are comparing names, and at least one is tree scoped, then both are tree scoped, and the scoping has to be exact (not subtree)

The next resolution was pretty straightforward. Besides allowing a , the anchor-scope property can take an all keyword, which means that all anchors are tree-scoped, while the says that specific anchor is three-scoped. So, the question was if all is also a tree-scoped value.

TabAtkins: anchor-scope, in addition to idents, can take the keyword ‘all‘, which scopes all names. Should this be a tree-scoped ‘all‘? (i.e. only applies to the current tree scope)

TabAtkins: Proposed resolution: the ‘all‘ keyword is also tree-scoped in the same way sgtm +1, again same pattern with view-transition-group

RESOLVED: the ‘all‘ keyword is tree-scoped

The conversation switched gears toward new properties coming in the CSS Scroll Snap Module Level 2 draft, which is all about changing the user’s initial scroll with CSS. Taking anexample directly from the spec, say we have an image carousel:

<div class="carousel">
  <img src="img1.jpg">
  <img src="img2.jpg">
  <img src="img3.jpg" class="origin">
  <img src="img4.jpg">
  <img src="img5.jpg">
</div>

We could start our scroll to show another image by setting it’s scroll-start-targe to auto:

.carousel {
  overflow-inline: auto;
}

.carousel .origin {
  scroll-start-target: auto;
}

As of right now, the only way to complete this is using JavaScript to scroll an element into view:

document.querySelector(".origin").scrollIntoView({
  behavior: "auto",
  block: "center",
  inline: "center"
});

The last example is probably a carousel that is only scrollable in the inline direction. Still, there are doubts as far when the container is scrollable in both the inline and block directions. As seen in the initial GitHub issue:

The scroll snap 2 spec says that when there are multiple elements that could be scroll-start-targets for a scroll container “user-agents should select the one which comes first in tree order“.

Selecting the first element in tree-order seems like a natural way to resolve competition between multiple targets which would be scrolled to in one particular axis but is perhaps not as flexible as might be needed for the 2d case where an author wants to scroll to one item in one axis and another item in the other axis.

And back to the CSSWG minutes:

DavidA: We have a property we’re adding called scroll-start-target that indicates if an element within a scroll container, then the scroll should start with that element onscreen. Question is what happens if there are multiple targets?
DavidA: Propose to do it in reverse-DOM order, this would result in the first one applied last and then be on screen. Also, should only change the scroll position if you have to.

After discussing why we have to define scroll-start-target when we have scroll-snap-align, the discussion went on discuss the reverse-DOM order:

fantasai: There was a bunch of discussion about regular vs reverse-DOM order. Where did we end up and why?
flackr: Currently, we expect that it scrolls to the first item in DOM order. We probably want that to still happen. That is why the proposal is to scroll to each item in sequence in reverse-DOM order.

So we are coming in reverse to scroll the element, but only as required so the following elements are showing as much as possible:

flackr: There is also the issue of nearest…
fantasai: Can you explain nearest?
flackr: Same as scroll into view
fantasai: ?
flackr: This is needed with you scroll multiple things into view and want to find a good position (?)
fantasai: You scroll in reverse-DOM order…when you add the spec can you make it really clear that this is the end result of the algorithm?
flackr: Yes absolutely
fantasai: Otherwise it seems to make sense

And so it was resolved:

Proposed resolution 2: When scroll-start-target targets multiple elements, scroll to each in reverse DOM order with text to specify priority is the first item

Lastly, there was the debate about the text-underline-position, that when set to auto says, “The user agent may use any algorithm to determine the underline’s position; however it must be placed at or under the alphabetic baseline.” The discussion was about whether the auto value should automatically adjust the underlined position to match specific language rules, for example, at the right of the text for vertical writing modes, like Japanese and Mongolian.

fantasai: The initial value of text-underline-position is auto, which is defined as “find a good place to put the underline”.
Three options there: (1) under alphabetical baseline, (2) fully below text (good for lots-of-descenders cases), (3) for vertical text on the RHS
fantasai: auto value is defined in the spec about ‘how far down below the text’, but doesn’t say things about flipping. The current spec says “at or below”. In order to handle language-specific aspects, there is a default UA style sheet that for Chinese and Japanese and Korean there are differences for those languages. A couple of implementations do this
fantasai: Should we change the spec to mention these things?
fantasai: Or should we stick with the UA stylesheet approach?

The thing is that Chrome and Firefox already place the underline on the right in vertical Japanese when text-underline-position is auto.

The group was left wiuth three options:

A) Keep spec as-is, update Gecko + Blink to match (using UA stylesheet for language switch)
B) Introduce auto to text-emphasis-position and use it in both text-emphasis-position and text-underline-position to effect language switches
C) Adopt inconsistent behavior: text-underline-position uses ‘auto‘ and text-emphasis-position uses UA stylesheet

Many CSSWG members like Emilio Cobos, TabAtkins, Miriam Suzanne, Rachel Andrew and fantasai casted their votes, resulting in the following resolution:

RESOLVED: add auto value for text-emphasis-position, and change the meaning of text-underline-position: auto to care about left vs right in vertical text

I definitely encourage you to read at the full minutes! Or if you don’t have the time, you can there’s a list just of resolutions.

CSSWG Minutes Telecon (2024-09-18) originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, brands constantly face the challenge of staying relevant to younger consumers. For Gen Z, traditional marketing strategies often fall flat. This age group are as brand-savvy as any top marketer and members of this generation engage in a personal branding project by building online personas that are as integral to their identity as any offline habits.

Gen Z is a switched-on, brand-cynical generation. To connect with this age group, you must understand them, and the unstable world they’ve built their identity in. A life online and unstable social, political and economic boundaries have led this generation to be drawn to short-term trends and memes that resonate with their sense of nostalgia, often not for distant decades, but for more recent times.

The exploding “brat summer” trend, with its early-naughties low-fi aesthetic, is the perfect example of this. This viral trend has quickly reached every corner of our culture and even initiated a high-profile ‘rebrand’ for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

If it’s good enough for a presidential contender, it should be good enough for your brand. But as the aesthetic of ‘Brat Summer’ compresses a nostalgic ache for simpler times with the accelerated trend-slash-meme production of the internet machine, it’s tough for brands to keep up.

Nostalgia branding might be about looking backward, but Gen Z is creating short-term nostalgic trends in a very forward-thinking way. Let’s find out how your brand can leverage the what’s trending treadmill to engage with a younger audience.

Why Nostalgia Branding is so Powerful for a Gen Z Audience

Nostalgia branding taps into powerful emotions, making it an effective strategy for connecting with any age group: 77% of consumers call this evergreen branding trend interesting. By evoking fond memories and a sense of comfort, consumers build a strong connection to the brand in question. This has traditionally been done by leaning on older eras: the ‘70s, ’80s or ’90s, and by targeting a time that your target audience remembers.

However, nostalgia hits different for Gen Z, a generation raised online with a mismatched set of cultural references at their fingertips. Despite being born long after ‘80s beach culture exemplified by sunglasses brand Vacation, the visual aesthetic is instantly understood. But Gen Z aren’t just drawn to long-term nostalgic vision: they’re also nostalgic for elements of their own formative years, and even the very recent past.

A Shorter Cycle of Nostalgia Trends

The internet has accelerated the cycle of trends and the present turns into the past quicker than ever, making it ripe for nostalgia, and nostalgia branding. What used to take decades to become nostalgic now takes just a few years. Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter have created environments where trends can go viral and fade away in the blink of an eye. This creates opportunities for brands to quickly adapt and leverage these trends.

“Nostalgia” can be for anything now: while previous efforts to implement nostalgia in branding have been casting back decades for eras where different value systems seemed more prominent (eg family, freedom, etc), now, Gen Z (and to an extent Millennials) will lean into an almost immediate nostalgia for things that happened in the recent past: Brat’s aesthetic is for an early-internet era, a simpler time.

Brat: A Case Study in Recent Nostalgia

“Brat” is a trend that encapsulates Gen Z’s unique take on nostalgia. It draws inspiration from early 2000s pop culture, particularly the rebellious and carefree attitudes seen in movies, TV shows, and music from that era. Think mini skirts, chunky highlights, and a vibe of spirited defiance.

Nobody expects it to last forever, with 80% of 18-25s anticipating this trend sticking around for fewer than a few months, but that’s part of the point. This should guide brand strategy: be fun, carefree and colorful, but be ready to move on to keep up with your audience.

Brands can take a leaf out of the “brat summer” playbook by understanding what resonates with Gen Z. They appreciate the irony and humor in looking back at trends from a decade ago as if they were ancient history. By tapping into this recent nostalgia, brands can create content that feels both familiar and fresh.

How Brands Can Leverage Online Trends to Engage Audiences

An accelerated cycle of memes and trends feeds into a potent nostalgic cocktail that can create highly effecting, and effective, marketing strategies, but it’s also overwhelming for brands trying to keep up.

Nevertheless, the opportunity for engagement, as well as creating a sense of authenticity, is huge when you successfully tap into short-term cycles of internet nostalgia. Here’s how….

1. Stay on Top of Trends

Keep an eye on social media platforms where trends emerge. Tools like Google Trends, Twitter’s trending topics, and TikTok’s Discover page can help you stay up to date.

While the specifics of a trend can’t be anticipated — nobody expected the neon tones and lower-case typography of Brat — the “something” summer is now a well-established template. Hot girl summer and hot vax summer are in the rearview mirror, and Brat summer is turning up the heat this July. Brands should be aware of wider trends and be ready to leverage memes and microtrends that fit.

2. Be Authentic

Faced with an increasingly superficial online world, Gen Z values authenticity: both in the brands they love and in their own lives. When leveraging nostalgia, it’s important to do so in a way that feels genuine. Avoid pandering, and instead, create content that creates relevance between your brand and a nostalgic trend, like Old Spice’s old-timey barber shop.

3. Collaborate with Influencers

Influencers who resonate with Gen Z can help amplify your message. Partner with influencers who align with the trend to create sponsored content that feels organic and relatable. A collaboration between luxury fashion brand Marc Jacobs and a TikTok account recreating soap opera drama with Sylvanian Families was one recent hit among a Gen Z audience.

4. Use Visual Storytelling

Visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok are perfect for nostalgia branding where past aesthetics can be used to create arresting visual content, such as Vacation’s consistent, sun-kissed ‘70s look. Nostalgia is about evoking an emotional response to times gone by, but given that half our brain’s processing power is devoted to the visual, this is best done with powerful imagery.

5. Engage in Conversations

By hitching your wagon to the latest trends, your brand is joining the conversation. Don’t forget to comment on posts, share user-generated content, and use hashtags to make your brand part of the community. By engaging in a meaningful way, you’ll ensure you’re not just responding to the latest trends, but playing your part in creating the next one.

Conclusion

Brands must be careful when leveraging short-term trends to build long-term engagement. While younger consumers see the Brat aesthetic everywhere, we found that less than 6% of over-45s are familiar with the trend. Know your audience before you lean into a meme otherwise, your efforts could fall flat.

For younger consumers, however, tapping into timely trends creates a perception of authenticity in the brands they see online. Connecting with Gen Z requires an understanding of their unique relationship with trends and nostalgia. Short-term trends like “brat summer” offer a glimpse into how recent nostalgia can be a powerful tool for engagement.

By staying ahead of trends, being authentic, collaborating with influencers, creating interactive content, using visual storytelling, and engaging in conversations, brands can build meaningful connections with younger consumers.

Featured image by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

The post Staying Relevant: A Guide for Brands in the Era of Gen Z Trends appeared first on noupe.

Having fun with Bramus’ new Caniuse CLI tool. This’ll save lots of trips to the Caniuse site!

Quick Hit #20 originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

Two possible syntaxes for CSS masonry, one draft specification, and you get to share your opinions.

Quick Hit #19 originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses are always on the lookout for new ways to connect with their audience. BlueSky, a decentralized social media platform, is quickly gaining attention as a fresh alternative to traditional platforms like Twitter and Instagram. While it’s still early days for BlueSky, its unique structure offers a big opportunity for businesses to build communities and engage with users in a more transparent, user-focused way.