# Declan Chidlow

> Declan Chidlow, known online as Vale, is a Perth-based front-end developer, writer, and photographer who champions the open web from the front of the front-end. Armed with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, he builds accessible digital experiences and publishes technical articles across Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, and Piccalilli — while also shipping quirky open-source tools like BritCSS (CSS for those who refuse to spell 'colour' without the u) and Adduce, a Rust-powered static site generator. When not coding or writing, he can be found on a unicycle.

- **Role:** Freelance Front-End Developer & Technical Writer
- **Organizations:** Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, Piccalilli, Stoat
- **Nationality:** Australian
- **Known for:** Published technical articles in Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, and Piccalilli, BritCSS project gained 170+ GitHub stars and featured on Hackaday (2025), Built Adduce, a Rust-powered static site generator

## Career timeline

- **2022** — Launched vale.rocks personal website (first post: 'The Design of This Site', September 2022)
- **2023** — Published BritCSS, a JavaScript tool enabling British English CSS spellings — gained 170+ GitHub stars
- **2024** — Released Adduce, a fast Rust-based static site generator with 28 GitHub stars
- **2025** — Published 'Optimizing PWAs For Different Display Modes' in Smashing Magazine (August 2025)
- **2025** — Featured on Hackaday for BritCSS project (March 2025)
- **2025** — Published articles on Piccalilli: print stylesheets, view transitions, and CSS cursors
- **2025** — Contributed to State of Devs 2025 survey analysis, advocating for new developer talent
- **2026** — Published 'A Complete Guide to Bookmarklets' on CSS-Tricks (February 2026)
- **2026** — Published 'A quick guide to creating syndication feeds' on Piccalilli (April 2026)
- **2026** — Posted 'The $25 MacBook Pro' on vale.rocks (May 2026)

## Achievements

- Published technical articles in Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, and Piccalilli
- BritCSS project gained 170+ GitHub stars and featured on Hackaday (2025)
- Built Adduce, a Rust-powered static site generator
- Redesigned the Public Libraries Western Australia website
- 61 photos published on Unsplash
- GitHub achievements: Pair Extraordinaire, Starstruck (x2), Pull Shark (x2), YOLO, Quickdraw
- Featured on Changelog News for open-source work
- Contributed analysis to State of Devs 2025 report

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Published 'The $25 MacBook Pro' on vale.rocks
- **2026-04** — Published 'A quick guide to creating syndication feeds' on Piccalilli
- **2026-02** — Published 'A Complete Guide to Bookmarklets' on CSS-Tricks
- **2025-11** — Published 'Some practical examples of view transitions' on Piccalilli
- **2025-08** — Published 'Optimizing PWAs For Different Display Modes' on Smashing Magazine
- **2025-06** — Published 'Printing the web: making webpages look good on paper' on Piccalilli
- **2025-03** — BritCSS featured on Hackaday

## Links

- Website: https://vale.rocks
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/declan-chidlow
- GitHub: https://github.com/DeclanChidlow
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@outervale
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/vale.rocks

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/declan-chidlow
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-07