Laravel, Kilopixel, and Building for Human Connection. The Artisan of the Day Is Ben Holmen.
Ben Holmen’s career in web development spans two decades, stretching all the way back to the early days of the internet. “I started web programming back in the cgi-bin days, writing Perl scripts and SHTML files. PHP was a natural extension of that, and I’ve spent 20 years writing web apps in PHP.”
For much of that time, Holmen resisted adopting a framework. “I tried a few different frameworks and never really saw enough value in embracing one. I had created my own custom tooling that I moved from project to project,” he explained.
That changed in 2018. “By then, Laravel felt inescapable, and I decided to give it a try on a large marketplace I was gearing up to build. The community was right: it’s something special, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Side Project Gone Viral: Kilopixel
By day, Holmen serves as an engineering manager at Zillow. “I’m responsible for a large B2B SaaS for real estate photographers. We create software that runs photography businesses, and think a lot about scheduling, business processes, and media management.”
Outside of work, his passion projects are anything but ordinary. The standout is Kilopixel, a web-controlled display built out of 1,000 wooden pixels. “It was a real labor of love over a six-year period. I designed a custom CNC machine, totally bespoke hardware, a control system, and a web app to choose what should be displayed on the pixels. I then asked the internet to submit art and vote for what should be drawn next.”
The project went viral, attracting far more attention than anything Holmen had ever shared online.
The Tech Behind Kilopixel
Though unusual in form, Kilopixel runs on a familiar Laravel stack. “The web app is a very typical Laravel stack: Laravel, Inertia, and Vue; Reverb to keep clients in sync; and scheduled jobs to run ffmpeg commands to create timelapses of the machine drawing submissions.”
On the hardware side, a Raspberry Pi runs a Python script that interfaces with the Laravel API. “It determines which pixel should be changed next and sends G-code to a motor controller. It also reads a light sensor and reports the actual pixel state back to the API.”
The combination allowed Holmen to focus on creativity. “Laravel and Inertia make it so easy to get a web app off the ground so I can focus on the fun stuff.”
His Advice: Design for Humans
For Holmen, the social aspect of Kilopixel mattered as much as the technical execution. “I knew that I wanted this project to be a social event. It was something I wanted to share with others and welcome collaboration. I spent a lot of time thinking about the social design of the system, making it easy for anyone to participate and feel like they were part of something.”
He carried that philosophy into documenting the project as well. “I was deliberate in how I wrote my ‘how I built this’ blog post and tried my best to make it approachable for fellow curious humans.”
His advice for fellow developers: “If you’re building something for other humans, you must be empathetic and consider how they will perceive what you’re building, what value they will find in it, and how they will meaningfully engage with it. If there are too many barriers, or the incentive is not great enough, the project will languish.”
Building Communities, Online and Offline
Holmen’s interest in projects that connect people doesn’t stop at Kilopixel. “I find that I’m almost exclusively interested in projects that connect with other people. I love building things, but I really love building things that foster connection with other humans. And that requires empathy and care.”
This is why he organizes PHP×MSP, a PHP meetup in Minneapolis. “A meetup is another thing you build — it’s a mechanism to connect with other people, and requires the same thoughtful approach. Why will people be interested in your event? What obstacles must be overcome? What will their perspective be when they walk in the front door? What will put them at ease at the event? It’s critical to put yourself in your community’s mindset and design your event around that experience.”
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