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Podcast Awesome

Podcast Awesome

Von: Font Awesome
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On Podcast Awesome we talk to members of the Font Awesome team about icons, design, tech, business, and of course, nerdery.

🎙️ Podcast Awesome is your all-access pass into the creative engine behind Font Awesome — the web’s favorite icon toolkit. Join host Matt Johnson and the Font Awesome crew (and friends) for deep dives into icon design, front-end engineering, software development, healthy business culture, and a whole lot of lovingly-rendered nerdery.


From technical explorations of our open-source tooling, chats with web builders, icon designers, and content creators, with the occasional gleeful rants about early internet meme culture, we bring you stories and strategies from the trenches of building modern web software — with a healthy dose of 80s references and tech dad jokes.


🎧 Perfect for:

  • Icon design and content-first thinking
  • Creative process and collaborative design
  • Work-life balance in tech
  • Remote team culture and async collaboration
  • Internet history, meme archaeology, and other nerd ephemera


🧠 Come for the design wisdom, stay for the deep meme cuts and beautifully crafted icons.

© 2026 Podcast Awesome
Kunst Management & Leadership Ökonomie
  • Vic Bell on Designing Graphite: Hand-Drawn Icons for Font Awesome
    Feb 19 2026

    In this episode, Matt and Jory sit down with UK-based icon designer + illustrator Vic Bell to talk about the brand-new Font Awesome icon pack, Graphite — a loose, hand-drawn set that brings texture, depth, and a whole lot of human personality to iconography.

    If you’ve ever tried to balance clarity vs. creativity, or wondered how icons can feel more like typefaces with different “voices”, this one’s for you. 🎧

    🗒️ What We Cover in This Episode

    👋 How Vic and Jory connected
    ✏️ Designing Font Awesome Pro Plus packs and how “Small Batch” became a thing
    🧠 Vic’s creative journey: trends, taste, and identity
    🏠 Why icons are storytelling at micro-scale
    ⚖️ The tension between clarity and creativity
    🧰 Illustrator vs. Figma for icon design
    📲 Custom brushes and iPad sidecar workflows

    🕒 Timestamps
    0:00 - Introduction and Welcome
    0:46 - How Vic and Jory Connected
    2:48 - Font Awesome Icon Packs Overview
    5:42 - Vic's Creative Journey and Evolution
    7:45 - The Hand-Drawn "Graphite" Icon Style
    10:17 - Reflections on Icon Design as a Career
    13:41 - Childhood Influences and the Magic of Small Things
    17:18 - Creative Process and Personalization
    22:19 - Trusting the Creative Process
    23:32 - Project Validation and Creative Freedom
    25:15 - Technical Challenges and Implementation
    26:23 - Future of Font Awesome Icon Packs
    30:52 - Illustrator vs. Figma for Icon Design
    31:28 - Creating Custom Brushes and Using iPad
    38:38 - Balancing Clarity and Creativity in Icon Design
    47:37 - Releasing Icon Packs and Delayed Gratification

    🔗 Links & Resources

    Vic Bell: / vic_bell
    Font Awesome: https://fontawesome.com/
    Web Awesome: https://webawesome.com/
    Theme music by Ronnie Martin
    Interstitial music by Zach Malm

    Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!

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    57 Min.
  • How Eleventy Survived: Funding, Growth, and Open Source Reality
    Feb 3 2026

    Eleventy started as a side project. Now it’s a critical infrastructure for thousands of websites.

    TL;DR: Open source isn’t broken. But the way we fund it often is. Let’s talk about what actually works.

    In this episode, we sit down with Zach Leatherman, creator of Eleventy (11ty), to talk honestly about what happens after open source succeeds. From nap-time coding and nights-and-weekends maintenance to venture capital pressure, burnout risk, and the reality of funding long-lived developer tools, this conversation digs into the cultural and financial tradeoffs behind modern open source.

    We cover sustainability, community expectations, funding models that don’t rely on hockey-stick growth, and why “free forever” only works if the people behind the project can stay whole humans.

    🎙️ What We Cover in This Episode

    • 🧠 How Eleventy grew from a side project into a widely depended-on tool
    • ⚖️ The maintainer’s dilemma: growth, responsibility, and personal sustainability
    • 💸 Why venture capital and hockey-stick growth often fail dev tools
    • 🔥 Burnout, boundaries, and being accountable to a global user base
    • 🏡 Balancing family life with open source maintenance
    • 🔁 Different funding models: donations, sponsorships, Pro tools, and tradeoffs
    • 🌱 What sustainable open source can look like long-term
    • 🔮 What’s ahead for Eleventy and its next chapter


    ⏱️ Timestamps
    00:00 – Introductions and why open source sustainability matters
    01:47 – Eleventy’s early days and unexpected adoption
    04:32 – When a “side project” becomes critical infrastructure
    06:42 – Corporate usage, expectations, and hidden pressure
    10:08 – Family life, burnout risk, and personal boundaries
    14:17 – Funding models: donations vs. sustainability
    18:45 – Venture capital, acquisitions, and hockey-stick growth myths
    23:33 – Lessons from Gatsby, Astro, and the dev tools ecosystem
    26:25 – Why sustainable open source must tie to real value
    30:26 – A healthier path forward for maintainers and communities
    33:20 – What’s next for Eleventy

    🔗 Links & Resources

    • Eleventy (11ty)
    • Font Awesome
    • Web Awesome

    🎵 Theme music by Ronnie Martin
    🎹 Interstitial music by Zach Malm
    🎥 Video support by Isaac Chase

    Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!

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    29 Min.
  • 2025 Awesomeverse Recap with Matt and Jory
    Jan 22 2026

    Happy New Year from the Awesomeverse! In this episode, Matt and Jory kick off 2026 by recapping all the wild, weird, and wonderful things that happened across Font Awesome and Web Awesome in 2025. From the launch of FA7 and small-batch icon packs to a possum puppet mascot (yes, really), they reflect on the big (and small batch) wins, behind-the-scenes hilarity, and creative experiments that made the year unforgettable. Oh, and if you're wondering what it's like to direct a hot dog-eating scene at a Kickstarter video shoot? We’ve got that covered too.

    TL;DR: New icons, big upgrades, hilarious videos, brainy guests, possum puppets, and one heck of a year.

    🧠 What We Cover in This Episode

    • 🎉 Reflecting on FA7 upgrades
    • 🧪 The rise of Pro Plus and its small batch icon packs (Etch! Jelly! Not Dog!)
    • 🎥 Behind-the-scenes on the F.A.C.U. cinematic universe and the FA7 shoot (hot dog suit included)
    • 🧩 How the newsletter icon puzzle took on a life of its own
    • 🧰 The official Web Awesome launch and what’s next
    • 🧠 Brainy takes on icon cognition from Dr. Brian Glenny
    • 🐾 The birth of Awesome Possum, our unofficial but fully fabulous mascot
    • 📦 Teasers for what’s coming in 2026: More icons, more components, and more fun

    ⏱️ Timestamps

    00:00 – Post-holiday haze & back in the podcast saddle
    02:00 – FA7 highlights: Pro Plus packs + icon design overhaul
    04:30 – Icon Pack breakdown: Etch, Jelly, Not Dog, and beyond
    06:00 – Behind-the-scenes filming stories from the FA7 Kickstarter video
    10:00 – Web Awesome officially launches!
    12:30 – How the Awesome Possum was born
    16:00 – The rise of the icon puzzle & newsletter hijinks
    24:00 – Standout guests from the past season + the philosophy of icon design
    28:00 – Accessibility icons, graffiti activism, and symbol cognition
    30:00 – What’s coming in 2026: New icon packs, new components, and new surprises
    32:00 – The Awesome Possum signs us off (kinda)

    🔗 Links & Resources

    • Check out the FA7 Launch Video
    • Learn more about Pro Plus
    • Build with Web Awesome
    • Subscribe to our Newsletter (get the puzzle!)
    • Jory’s Puzzle Book: “Goes Without Saying”
    • Behind-the-scenes of the FA7 Shoot
    • The Accessibility Icon Project

    🎵 Theme music by Ronnie Martin
    🎹 Interstitial music by Zach Malm
    🎥 Video support by Isaac Chase

    Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!

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    35 Min.
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