The Latest Articles, Ideas, Musings, & Rants
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A sharp tool cuts you back
A longer read but worth the journey. Captures some of my recent thinking about friction and how some friction is necessary, both in the design process but also in the process of a user learning a digital system. AI short circuits some processes, and some of that is valid and useful. But some of it short circuits the thinking process and reduces the value of our output, leaning on the middle, common denominator solutions. > This reminds me of the...
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AI Job Grief: The Unnamed Psychological Crisis Hitting Tech Workers
This article sums up much of what I have been feeling but can not yet express. He found the words I have been looking for. So many good quotes. > Knowledge workers hold a different relationship to their labor than manufacturing workers did. For a cognitive professional, expertise is a large part of the self rather than merely an activity. […] When automation threatens the work, it reaches past the income and touches the identity. {: .quote .small} > The...
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On being a designer in the most interesting, exhausting moment of our careers
I have an interesting POV as someone who has a design background but also coded a decent amount in the 2000s into the 2010s. I and some partners created our own PHP-driven CMS when we were not happy with WordPress and how most clients needed to edit pages, not blog posts. I still code, but much less, and more presentational (HTML/CSS). That is to say I am not scared of code. Much talk of “vibe-coding” doesn’t scare me. In fact,...
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Saving time, or moving time from one category to another
This is a review of a few articles that came to my attention with similar themes around the use of AI and whether or not it saves time or consumes more time. From my experience, I think it does both as well as it compresses time. It makes the fast things go faster, but sometimes, it makes them take longer, too. Some of that can be attributed to user error (bad prompts, improper RAG source files, etc.) and some of...
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What is “Work” in an AI-Agent Economy?
I had a nagging itch to explore the future of work after listening to a bunch of podcasts focused on the changing AI landscape. To went into [Gemini](https://gemini.google.com), which I have been looking lately, to explore some ideas I have had. The Gemini responses have been truncated for brevity and to reduce repetition. My thought was mostly how writers and the AI labs themselves have been promoting this rather doomed state as their ideal. In some ways, they are just...
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2025 Year in Review
A year is both a long time and a short time. Here’s a quick recap of things that happened in 2025. ## Politics The world fell apart and continues to disintegrate. That’s all I want to say about that. ## My Kids My oldest entered high school, which is quite a milestone. They are all-in on being a creative person, which I am very proud of. The enrolled in a weekend art program through RISD and that has challenged them...
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A tool is a tool; The person wielding it has the power
I feel similar here. The A.I. tools have snuck into my workflow. Sometimes, they lead me exactly where I want to go. I extract what I need and move on. I use them for research, for proofs of concepts, and sometimes to challenge my thinking. I don’t yet use them to be creative, but even still, I feel my brain being patterned by the way I use A.I., and I know I need to be careful. The author laments the...
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A return to ornament for ornament’s sake
I’m wishy washy when it comes to ornament in design. I mean to say that I can appreciate both the craft of [William Morris](https://wmgallery.org.uk/collection/) as well as the restraint of the [Bauhaus school of design](https://www.bauhaus.de/en/research/collection/) — not that they are mutually exclusive, in retrospect. But at the time, the simplified forms of the Bauhaus were a direct reaction to the overly ornamental Victorian era 40 years previous. In 2025, I appreciate what the past has given us. Regarding architecture, I fully...
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We are using technology wrong
The Jolly Teapot’s latest rant is a good one. While it starts with a keen observation that I have also made — that people no longer have the skill to be bored — it moves through the way in which we don’t fully understand how the technology was meant to work. These objects can do so many things conveniently, and yet we often leave the default, most inconvenient settings to rule our lives. But it goes further. It goes into the quality...
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Weather Trends
Last November, I wrote that it was unseasonably warm. Well, this year it is the opposite. Maybe not unseasonably cold — more like what is probably normal for this time of the season. August felt like a bummer. Summer was warm but cooled off quickly. August had cooler days, fewer sun breaks, and more rain. September was pretty good but cool — again, probably more like the summer’s of a decade ago. October was nice as well, with Halloween being the...
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Hiring a design studio may become a status symbol
Like what is happening to the code engineering industry, the grunt work that helped new designer right out of college learn how to be part of a design studio — to see how the sausage was made and to even learn a little along the way while helping to make it — might be going away. Production design, which basically means following the style guides and templates that a senior designer created, rather mindlessly, I might add, can be done effectively...
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Link Round Up: September
Nicolas Magand, aka [The Jolly Teapot], does a monthly round up of links and so, I borrowed the idea here. There are so many things that I read which make an impression but which don’t require a complete note or article. Here are some other things I have ben reading and ruminating upon. ## [The Creator and the Machine](https://www.doc.cc/articles/the-creator-and-the-machine) {: .h4} A long essay about the history of fine artists and computers, drawing parallels with how artists are embracing — or...
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Working with AI (not making AI work for you)
Whether I like AI or not, it is here. It is the team member that we all need to work with, whether or not we like its politics and general world view. Therefore, it is time for me to really learn how to work with it as a thought partner. I do not want to use it to do work for me, because at my level and with the way I need to own strategy and get others on my...
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How do we know we are in a bubble? Wait until it Pops
I follow economics and the stock market in the periphery. It does not affect me directly, but it certainly affects me indirectly, so I pay as much attention as I think it deserves, which ebbs and flows with the highs and lows. The way in which the past few years has made me feel like it is all built on vibes seems to have come to a head. It sounds indeed like it is actually built on vibes, and people...
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The Tyranny of the Default
Its difficult to talk about virtual tyranny when real tyranny is knocking on the country’s door — if its not already made itself very comfortable in our favorite chair. But this feels relevant to me as I think more about being a creative person with no creative practice. I feel as though mentoring others and directing others has left me with no creativity of my own. I also know that is probably not true, and just my pessimistic tendencies talking, but...
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Make Things Happen
This article made me think about some of the designers I have worked with in the past. There are not many — I have not made many career moves and have worked for small agencies less than 50 people. Even fewer were on the design side of the house. They have all made impressions. As the article says, some of the ability to take something that is not initially glamorous and turn it into a jewel. > What made those projects...