Inside the UX lessons, internet lore, and surprising comeback of Clippy

Love him or loathe him, you remember him. Clippy — the googly-eyed paperclip that lived inside Microsoft Word — has become a permanent fixture in internet culture. But how did a productivity tool become the patron saint of annoying-yet-adorable UI? In this episode of Podcast Awesome, we’re digging into the cult of Clippy with behind-the-scenes insights from Clippy's original creator Kevan Atteberry and Microsoft designer Sam Cundall. From meme fame to Microsoft Teams emoji, Clippy's legacy is more layered than you think.

📝 What We Cover in This Episode:

• 📎 Why Clippy was loved and hated
• 🧠 The psychology of nostalgic design
• 🔁 When Microsoft secretly brought Clippy back
• 🤖 What Clippy might teach us about the future of AI assistants
• ✍️ thoughts on reviving legacy designs the right way

⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome to the Cult of Clippy
02:00 – The origin story: from helpful to hated
04:30 – Nostalgia and annoyance: why we love to hate him
06:00 – Microsoft’s secret Clippy emoji comeback
08:00 – What makes emoji design "work"?
10:00 – Fun at work: why weirdness builds culture
14:00 – The creator's take: Kevan Atteberry on designing Clippy
20:00 – From embarrassment to pride: Clippy's redemption arc
24:00 – Clippy vs. Siri: The rise of personality-driven UI
26:00 – Final thoughts: where personality fits in UX

🔗 Links & Resources:

• Sam Kundal on LinkedIn
• Kevan Atteberry's books
• How to add a paperclip emoji to your UI
• Vote a favorite icon up the leaderboard
• 🎥 Podcast Awesome on YouTube
  🎶 The Font Awesome Theme Song – Composed by Ronnie Martin
  🎸 Music Interstitials by Zach Malm
  🎬 Produced and edited by Matt Johnson with some extra help from Isaac Chase 

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Have you ever rage-coded your way into building a developer tool that actually fixes things? Burton Smith has. And we’re here for it.

In this episode of Podcast Awesome, Matt and Web Awesome's boss, Cory Laviska chat with Burton Smith. Burton is an open source wizard and creator of the Web Components Toolkit, and he tells us about the gap between the promise of Web Components and the messy reality devs often face.

💻 Burton’s toolkit bridges that gap like Gandalf on a DX bender.

In this episode we dive into:
⚙️ Developer experience pain points
🧩 Custom Elements Manifests (CEMs) and real-world tooling
🎯 Form-associated custom elements, declarative shadow DOM, and why they still have rough edges
🚀 Why frameworks finally (mostly) play nice with Web Components
📦 How open source tools can fix the stuff we all silently suffer through
🧠 And why making components “just work” should be table stakes

This one’s for devs who are tired of wiring up wrappers, fighting with VS Code autocomplete, or wondering why their component still doesn’t show up right in Storybook.

✨ Bonus: We get a little spicy about SSR, headless UI, and whether a global design system is even a thing we want.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome to Podcast Awesome
 02:00 – Meet Burton Smith: The Stuff Breaker
 04:00 – Why Web Components Tooling is (Still) a Pain
 06:00 – Closing the Gap Between DX and Dev Reality
 12:00 – CEMs, ASTs, and Metadata Magic
 20:00 – Form-associated Custom Elements (and the Weird Gaps)
 24:00 – Declarative Shadow DOM: Blessing or Band-Aid?
 28:00 – SSR, Frameworks, and the Next Frontier
 34:00 – Global Design Systems, Gatekeeping, and Interop
 42:00 – Headless UI vs. Useless DX
 44:00 – How to Support Burton + Where to Find the Toolkit

🔗 Links & Resources

🌐 Burton’s Toolkit: https://wc-toolkit.com
🧙‍♂️ Follow Burton on GitHub: https://github.com/Breakstuff
🐦 Burton on Social: @StuffBreaker
📄 Learn more about Custom Elements Manifest: https://github.com/webcomponents/custom-elements-manifest
🛠️ Web Awesome: https://webawesome.dev
🧡 Shoutout to all you open sourcers building magic after hours

🎥 Podcast Awesome on YouTube 

🎶 The Font Awesome Theme Song – Composed by Ronnie Martin
🎸 Music Interstitials by Zach Malm
🎬 Produced and edited by Matt Johnson with some extra help from Isaac Chase 

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🔴 “Excuse me … I believe you have my stapler?”

One line. Infinite memes. A red-hot icon.

In this episode of The Story Behind the Icon, we dive deep into the surprisingly rich lore behind the humble office stapler — and how a cult classic film, a soft-spoken cubicle dweller, and a spray-painted prop turned it into a cultural artifact.

🎧 Whether you’ve got 37 pieces of flair or just enough sarcasm to survive corporate life, this one’s for the design nerds, Office Space devotees, and UI jokesters looking for the perfect button metaphor.

🔍 What We Cover in This Episode

🔴 The origin story of Milton’s beloved red stapler
 🎞️ Mike Judge’s animated roots and early Office Space shorts
 💻 Remote work, legacy office gear, and the evolution of workplace design
 🧑‍💼 Font Awesome’s very own “Milton” and the logic behind the madness
 🎨 How to recreate Milton’s soul in HTML with our duotone icon
 🎬 The real reason Swingline started making red staplers

⏰ Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome to Podcast Awesome
 01:25 – A new take on the old office
 02:40 – Meet Milton: The patron saint of passive resistance
 04:20 – Mike Judge: From Beavis and Butthead to box office satire
 05:55 – The stapler becomes an icon
 06:35 – Meet FA’s own Milton (Hi, Steve 👋)
 07:20 – Grumpiness as UI insight
 08:05 – Milton’s stapler wasn’t red... until it was
 09:00 – Design challenge: Where will you use the stapler icon?
09:50 – Commission your own icon or vote one into existence
10:30 – Credits and a final plea: Return. The. Stapler.

🔗 Links & Resources

🖇️ Stapler Icon on Font Awesome
📽️ Office Space (1999)
🎨 Vote for an icon on the leaderboard
📝 FA Blog: The Story Behind the Icon Series

🎥 Podcast Awesome on YouTube – Full uncut convo with extra music nerdiness
🎶 The Font Awesome Theme Song – Composed by Ronnie Martin
🎸 Music Interstitials by Zach Malm
🎬 Produced and edited by Matt Johnson

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Designing Joy: Don Clark of Invisible Creature on Creativity, Collectibles & Culture

In this episode of Podcast Awesome, Matt hangs out with legendary designer Don Clark of Invisible Creature to dive into the analog soul of digital design. From their punk rock roots and Grammy-nominated album covers to art directing for Seattle’s swankiest restaurant, Don and his brother Ryan have created work you’ve seen —whether you know it or not.

They discuss growing up with a NASA illustrator grandpa, how nostalgia fuels creativity, the value of physical objects in a swipe-and-scroll world, and how a sibling-run design studio rides the waves of industry change. It’s a masterclass in storytelling, aesthetics, and sneaky inspiration.

Plus, Don once designed a 7-story mural for Newark Airport that one construction worker told him no one would ever notice. Art, meet irony.

✨ What We Cover in This Episode

• 🚀 Grandpa drew spaceships for NASA — no big deal
• 🎸 From hardcore zines to Grammy-nominated album art
• 🧸 Why physical objects still matter (even in a scroll-y, swipey world)
• 😊 Nostalgia, and the purposeful creation of joy 
• 🏠 Turning a love of toys and typography into brand work for Target, Canlis, and more
• 🏄🏻‍♂️ Creating a career by riding the wave (not controlling it)
• 👾 How Invisible Creature got its name — and why most people don’t realize they’ve seen their work
• 🍽️ Art direction in fine dining, and designing for iconic spaces

⏱️ Timestamps

[00:01:00] – Don’s creative upbringing & grandpa's NASA work
 [00:04:00] – From punk flyers to full-time design
 [00:08:00] – Physical design in a digital world
 [00:12:00] – Object design, collectibles, and vintage influence
 [00:16:00] – Tapping nostalgia the right way
[00:20:00] – Album covers, influence, and desktop publishing
[00:24:00] – The decline of CDs & the rise of gig posters
[00:28:00] – The challenges (and joys) of working with family
[00:32:00] – Canlis restaurant and entering the fine dining space
[00:36:00] – Creating inspiring physical spaces
[00:38:00] – Why “Invisible Creature” is the perfect name
[00:42:00] – Good design as invisible, objective experience
[00:44:00] – Designing stamps, murals, and children’s Bibles
[00:46:00] – Streamlining creativity after 25 years in the biz
[00:48:00] – Wrapping up and why riding the wave matters

🔗 Links & Resources

• Invisible Creature
• Mind Reader Music – Album packaging by Ryan Clark & Kevin Moore
• Canlis – Seattle fine dining where Don is art director
• Art of the Incredibles Book – Don’s favorite Pixar art book
• Podcast Awesome on YouTube – Full uncut convo with extra music nerdiness
• The Font Awesome Theme Song – Composed by Ronnie Martin
• Music Interstitials by Zach Malm
• Audio mastering by Chris Enns at Lemon Productions
• Produced and edited by Matt Johnson

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