Year One

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It’s been a whole year since I transformed Piccalilli from a newsletter into a full-blown educational hub, so it’s time to look at what’s been achieved and what’s coming up.


A year ago, I gave this site some new shoes and pushed out the version of Piccalilli that you know today—switching it from being just a newsletter about cool stuff, to being a hub of educational material around web design and development. What a year it has been too!

Over the last 12 months, this site has:

It’s been a hell of a busy 12 months, but this is all just the start.

This site has been a heck of a lot busier than I expected it to be, in its first year. At the time of writing, it’s had well over half a million page views in the last 6 months. I’ve only got data for the last 6 months because that’s when I applied Fathom analytics to the site. I’m also now running Netlify analytics to help me gauge what’s working and importantly, what’s broken!

The most popular content on this site is by far CUBE CSS related content. The intro blog post alone got over 85 thousand page views in the last 6 months. This is very much making me consider how I’m going to teach CSS in the upcoming course this year. Folks in the membership already have an idea because I’ve been telling them about it in their newsletter, but let’s just say, it’s very different to the previously planned material on basic, fundamental skills. This new plan will compliment some other free and open material I’m currently working on, too.

After CUBE CSS and the Eleventy course, the most popular types of content are tutorials and quick tips on modern CSS—especially when using it in interesting ways. A good example of this is the fluid typography tutorial, using clamp() one and in the same theme, a clamp()-based wrapper utility. The Front-End Challenges Club stuff is also really popular since I moved it all here, so maybe I should do some more of that too and give it more presence on the site.

The numbers don’t lie and y’all certainly seem to be enjoying the CSS content on here. Let me tell you, that will definitely be the dominant theme on the site this year, but I’m also keen to work across all three pillars of the web: HTML, CSS and JavaScript to help you all make good, accessible websites and apps.

Coming up in the future permalink

The next 12 months, I think, are going to be huge for this site. Just some of the things to come are:

  • The next premium course on CSS
  • A system to help learning key skills such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Accessibility easier (stay tuned 🤫)
  • Loads more tutorials, quick tips and blog posts
  • Hopefully, a couple of mini courses, teaching specific tools, methodologies or techniques

Thank you permalink

To everyone who has visited the site, shared my content, bought my courses and premium tutorials or become a Piccalilli Member: thank you so much. I’m an independent designer and educator so your support helps me to help as many people as possible. I want all the content on this site to be as accessible and possible and your support has so far really helped that and will continue to help that.

The last 12 months have seen a global pandemic arrive which frankly, turned my freelance business on its head. I took a gamble and pushed the Eleventy course out, way earlier than planned. The eye-watering number of you who pre-ordered it and then bought it is was, and continues to be mind blowing. Just know that it is you folks that helped me do this writing thing almost full time. By this time next year, my aim is to be completely full time on Piccalilli.

Again, thank you and until next time, take it easy 👋

Hello, I’m Andy and I’ll help you to level up your front-end development skills.

I'm a designer and front-end developer who has worked in the design and web industries for over 15 years, and in that time, I have worked with some of the largest organisations in the world, like Google, Harley-Davidson, BSkyB, Unilever, The Natural History Museum, Oracle, Capita, Vice Media and the NHS.

On Piccalilli, I share my knowledge and experience to make you a better front-end developer.

I'm the founder of Set Studio, a creative agency that specialises in building stunning websites that work for everyone. Check out what we're all about.