Links

A regularly updated collection of things I find worth reading, watching, or listening to. Subscribe via RSS.

• Looking elsewhere

  № 56

  Many great thoughts in this article by Robb Owen about craft, intentionality, standards and hype.

• Taste at speed

  № 55

  As I was finishing up writing a talk for Adyen's Studio Day (on designing and writing with attention and intention, on quality and craft, on taste, and on AI tooling), an email arrived in my inbox. In it was the latest post by Carly Ayres, writer, and previous co-founder of HAWRAF, and it reinforced the line of thinking I'd been on.

  She writes about taste, speed and AI and how, while AI may lower the bar to get to a decent first draft of whatever it is you're creating, speed doesn't always indicate progress. Progress may just be movement.

  Tools produce polish, but not perspective.

  I see many people writing about this at the moment. About how perspective and taste are what can set a good designer apart. About how creative constraints and thoughtful revision are key to an outcome that's good, and not just finished.

• Against The Dark Forest

  № 54

  Erin Kissane writes about online spaces and what makes them unbearable and joyful. The post is under her wreckage/salvage moniker, a “tiny studio and display case for small research projects and long-form explorations.”

• Stone Skipping Is a Lost Art. Kurt Steiner Wants the World to Find It.

  № 53

  

  An essay I wrote recently led me down a rabbit hole on stone skipping, culminating in this read on Kurt Steiner, a man who "has dedicated his entire adult life to stone skipping, sacrificing everything to produce world-record throws that defy the laws of physics."

• Shelf Space

  № 52

  

  For the 100th post on Frontier Magazine, Brian Sholis—self-proclaimed library devotee—indulges in sharing recently built libraries around the world.

  Congratulations on 100 posts, Brian!

• How Agnès Varda Became an Icon of Cinema

  № 51

  

  Richard Brody on the life and work of French filmmaker Agnès Varda. I'm looking forward to reading the upcoming biography, and I've quite a few of her films to catch up on.

• Why I Finally Quit Spotify

  № 50

  

  I've been flip-flopping between Spotify and Apple Music myself, and can relate to this piece by Kyle Chayka. Changes to their apps in recent years have not favoured (album) listeners like myself. It's fascinating and saddening to see one platform steer the way we consume music into a certain direction.

• Penguin Series Design

  № 49

  “This site explores the graphic design of Penguin book covers, with a focus on series editions. […] The covers presented on this site are all from my own collection of about 1400 Penguins, which have been chosen for the beauty or interest of their cover designs. They span the history of the company all the way back to 1935 when Penguin Books was launched.”

  What a collection — beautiful.

• Yes, People Do Buy Books

  № 48

  In response to a recent post by Elle Griffin ("No one buys books"), Lincoln Michel decides a more positive take is needed.

• Casey Neistat's first review of Apple's Vision Pro

  № 47

  I've not watched any other videos about the Vision Pro because I will not buy the goggles and I've been somewhat sceptical of this product direction, but Casey Neistat's video does an excellent job of showing what it's like to use this thing in real life, and gets across well the hints it provide at a future with spatial computing. It's… kind of exciting?