Notes & Writing
Journal
Field notes on design, technology, and process — the thinking behind the work, written as it happens.
Career
July 12, 2026
Creative Technologist Is a Better Title Than Either Half Alone
Why neither 'designer' nor 'developer' describes the work anymore — and how to tell if the hybrid title actually fits you.
- #positioning
Process
July 11, 2026
Twenty Images, One Keeper
Why the hard part of AI-assisted work is editing, not generating — and how to get better at the rejection that nobody sees.
- #craft
- #ai
Philosophy
July 10, 2026
What Advaita Taught Me About Deleting Things
A practice for subtraction, borrowed from an old idea — and the specific questions that reliably tell you what to cut.
- #stillness
- #design
Symbolism
July 9, 2026
The Instrument Problem
A concrete test for whether the recognizable object in your work is a real symbol or just a prop — using the moment a hero puts something down.
- #meaning
- #design
Automation
July 7, 2026
The Thing That Makes the Thing
How to tell when you've stopped making outputs and started building the system that makes them — and why that shift raises the floor on everything you produce next.
- #systems
- #process
Ai
July 5, 2026
AI Made Creation Cheap. Taste Got Expensive.
A practical way to spot generic AI output in your own work, and a rubric for fixing it — not just a feeling about 'good taste.'
- #taste
- #craft
Typography
July 2, 2026
Notes on an Editorial Type System
How one variable font and eight fluid steps became an entire type system — and how to build one small enough to actually hold in your head.
- #design-systems
Career
June 20, 2026
What Happens to Design Jobs When Generation Is Free
When making something costs almost nothing, value doesn't vanish — it relocates. A map of where it goes, so you can move with it.
- #ai
- #future
Engineering
June 9, 2026
Building a Cursor-Reactive Particle Field
The engineering behind an ambient background that costs nothing at rest — and the specific decisions that separate a tasteful field from a battery drain.
- #motion
Philosophy
May 18, 2026
Motion Born From Stillness
A working test for whether an animation earns its place on the screen — the principle the whole studio is built on, made practical.
- #process
Stillness
May 9, 2026
The House You're Born Into, and the One You Build
Every creative person starts inside inherited defaults — a taste, a toolset, a set of conventions they didn't choose. The work is noticing them, then building something on purpose.
- #philosophy
- #process
Symbolism
May 2, 2026
Can a UI Carry a Symbol the Way a Mandala Does?
A mandala means something through its structure — a center, a symmetry, an order. Most interfaces only mean something through their labels. What would it take to change that?
- #design
- #philosophy
Symbolism
April 25, 2026
Why Every Object Should Mean Something, or Be Removed
Chekhov's gun, applied to design: a rule for the density of a composition, and a test for what's earning its place versus just filling space.
- #composition
- #design
Process
April 18, 2026
What I Learned Building a World Instead of a Portfolio
A portfolio is a pile of separate things. A world is a set of things that belong together — and coherence turns out to be a strategy, not just an aesthetic.
- #portfolio
- #strategy
Systems
April 11, 2026
The Pipeline Is the Portfolio Piece
The most impressive thing you made this year might be the system that made everything else — here's why to show it, and how.
- #process
- #portfolio
Stillness
April 4, 2026
Can Interfaces Feel Spiritual?
Not religious — spiritual in the ordinary sense of presence, attention, and a little awe. A look at whether software can create that, and what it takes.
- #philosophy
- #design
Ai
March 28, 2026
Why the Best AI Art Doesn't Look Like AI Art Anymore
The tells that mark an image as machine-made — and the specific directorial moves that remove them.
- #craft
- #art-direction
Process
March 21, 2026
The Brief Is the Hardest Part
Defining the problem is harder, rarer, and more valuable than solving it. A case for spending your effort where it actually compounds — and how to write a brief that does the work.
- #craft
- #strategy
Ai
March 14, 2026
What "Raw" AI Output Actually Costs You
Unedited AI output feels free. It isn't — here's the hidden bill, and how to stop paying it.
- #craft
- #process
Symbolism
March 7, 2026
Designing With Mythology Instead of Mood Boards
A mood board gives you a look. A myth gives you meaning, structure, and a system that generates decisions — here's how to brief with one.
- #process
- #creative-direction
Career
February 27, 2026
The Designer Who Uses AI vs. the One AI Could Replace
The dividing line isn't whether you use the tools — nearly everyone will. It's whether the part you contribute is the part the tool already does.
- #ai
- #positioning
Design-systems
February 20, 2026
The Design System Nobody Sees
The best design work is the kind you never notice — and that invisibility is exactly what makes it hard to value, and to sell.
- #craft
Stillness
February 13, 2026
Why Dashboards Should Disappear
The best dashboard is the one you never have to open. A case for designing tools that earn their own irrelevance.
- #data
- #design
Automation
February 6, 2026
Automation Removes Repetition, Not Curiosity
The fear that automating your work kills the craft in it — and the line that separates what you should automate from what you never should.
- #process
- #craft
Process
January 30, 2026
Why I Show Unfinished Work on Purpose
The polished-masterpiece reveal is a myth that hides how work actually happens. Showing the mess is more honest, more useful, and — counterintuitively — more convincing.
- #craft
- #honesty
Systems
January 23, 2026
What a JSON File Can Teach You About Discipline
Defining a schema forces you to decide what actually matters — and that act of naming is a design discipline dressed up as data entry.
- #process
- #craft
Stillness
January 16, 2026
Designing Calm Instead of Engagement
Engagement metrics reward the interface that won't let you leave. Calm rewards the one that helps you finish and go. They are not the same goal — and you have to pick.
- #ethics
- #design