Brent Jackson
jxnblk.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2013
Brent Jackson is a designer-developer who builds CSS and React tools such as Rebass, Theme UI, and a gradient generator.
What HN saysHN commenters mention his Rebass component library as a nice tool they use, and point to his minimal CSS projects as examples of lightweight styling.
29HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
24stories submitted
407story points
6 years agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Rebass – Functional React UI component library built with styled-components8 people · 249 points · first shared 2016 · 64 comments on HN
- 2Shade – CSS gradient generator2 people · 18 points · first shared 2015 · 3 comments on HN
- 3Two Steps Forward, One Step Back - Theme UI2 people · 6 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 4Patterns for Style Composition in React2 people · 5 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 5Colorable2 people · 4 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 6Simpler, Readabler Twitter2 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 7Zero-Configuration React Static Site Generator2 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 8Demo2 people · first shared 2016
- 9Grid-styled: Responsive React grid system built with styled-components1 people · 79 points · first shared 2017 · 13 comments on HN
- 10The Design Graph1 people · 29 points · first shared 2020 · 3 comments on HN
- 11Building SVG Icons with React1 people · 4 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 12Reflexbox1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 13Skullcat [js music toy]1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 14Universal UI Components1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 15Defining Component APIs in React1 people · 1 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
mping · 2016-02-16
http://iamsurface.com pure css material, not updated in a while but looks great and has modals with pure css
https://imperavi.com/kube/css/ almost not minimal but pretty cool
http://jxnblk.com/gravitons/ really minimal
Vinnl · 2020-06-13
Note that you're not directly setting the size and the like. Instead, you're selecting items from a scale that should compose well together. They could advertise this better; I've read a post in the past that explained it well, but unfortunately I couldn't find it any more. https://styled-system.com might be a good place to start if you want to investigate why there might be more to it than you might assume at first.
Edit: I think this was the one: https://jxnblk.com/blog/mathematical-web-typography/
lprd · 2018-03-27
I'm a big fan of Styled Components. Also, check out Rebass: http://jxnblk.com/rebass/
blitzd · 2017-08-29
I've been using rebass lately and finding it quite nice - not sure how it compares with anything angular/sails based though.
http://jxnblk.com/rebass/
vinnymac · 2017-08-11
I have yet to get too involved in CSS-in-JS yet, purely because I am waiting for things to settle a little before I transition to it. With that said I am really excited for it, and I think it is solving a lot of problems I have with CSS.
1. This is one such component based styling framework built on top of styled-components. http://jxnblk.com/rebass/
2. In many of the solutions that exist I have found that they aim to work very well with existing CSS as much as possible. I haven't had to deal with many issues. Hopefully by the time I start switching entire projects over to it, everything will be completely stabilized.
sebringj · 2016-11-12
I see your point. Having the mobile layout Grid thing is quite handy. There is another toolkit for React I've been using for an admin backend that has proven useful, not quite as polished but has more of a complete toolkit for what I need. npm rebass, relfexbox, react-geomicons was on Hacker News as well -> http://jxnblk.com/rebass/
meemoo · 2016-03-08
Rebass does all styling inline. You can override per instance (pass in `style` prop), or "globally" via the React `context`. Example themes [1] can be seen in the demo [2] ("Config" dropdown in top right).
[1] https://github.com/jxnblk/rebass/tree/master/demo/configurations
[2] http://jxnblk.com/rebass/demo/
mrmrs · 2016-03-07
I think this demo is pretty rad:
http://jxnblk.com/rebass/demo/
emddudley · 2015-03-08
There's a good article on color contrast here: http://viget.com/inspire/color-contrast
And a really cool tool for rating color contrast: http://jxnblk.com/colorable/demos/text/
ptgloden · 2017-07-05
I've really enjoyed using jxnblk's approach to styling. I started with basscss [1], then moved on to rebass, and finally settled on axs [2]. They all take more or less the same approach, but operate differently. Rebass generates inline styles; basscss is simply a CSS file that defines a set of utility classes (like `mb2`, `p3`, `flex-none`, etc.); and axs dynamically generates CSS classnames and stylesheets.
...Or at least, that used to be the case. Looking at the most recent version of rebass, it looks as if it uses the same dynamic classname/stylesheet generation strategy. Now I'm not so sure what the difference between rebass and axs are, except that the former seems to be a comprehensive set of UI components, and the latter a tool for generating your own component library.
In any case, I'm glad jxnblk keeps experimenting with these libraries, even if it's hard to keep up with the changes. Their surface area is so small that it's easy to pick up the API and it doesn't feel like a risk or burden to stay on older versions.
[1] http://basscss.com/
[2] http://jxnblk.com/axs/