Studio Missive 23: This year’s goals

Hello my friend,

We are so back! Happy New Year to you and yours. Here’s what’s been happening in the studio this week (well, this year, so keep reading).

What’s inspiring you?

1. Henry Desroches wrote a beautiful essay about reclaiming the internet from the giant corporations who are destroying it, and how personal websites could make the internet fun again.
2. I try not to dunk here, but I’ve managed to avoid upgrading to macOS 26 Tahoe so far, and I have no regrets. Nikita Prokopov wrote about how bad menus are in Tahoe, and Howard Oakley wrote about a lack of contrast throughout the OS. Oakley included a screenshot of what macOS looked like in 2014, and I kind of want it back. Sometimes, learning what not to do is the pathway to learning what you should do, and I walked away from both articles feeling more confident in my own skills as a designer. 
3. Dave Rupert wrote about the new contrast-color() feature in CSS, which apparently lets you write a code and let the browser automatically pick the accessible complementary colour (between black and white). So useful!
4. It’s the time of year for end-of-year and beginning-of-year lists. I am a sucker for these. Folks like Robb Knight, Dave Bushell, and Matt Birchler are sharing their lists of app defaults. Austin Kleon wrote about 100 things that made his 2025. Is it too late to write a few of these of my own and share them next week?

What are you working on this week?

I woke up on January 2 and chose an audacious revenue goal for the year. Like, really audacious. I’m not writing it down because I’m anxious that writing it down will make it real, and there’s a very slim chance I hit this revenue goal because of Redacted^TM (maybe more later). But I’m a big fan of massive, unachievable goals, and I get annoyed when people tell me what I want to do is impossible, and then I feel the need to prove myself.

There are a few things that are on my plate right now, in addition to client work, that are going to contribute towards this goal:

1. I am working on a rewrite of this website that will position me as more strategy-forward. This week I wrote new copy for the home page (not up yet) and started redesigning elements of the site that need to be touched up to fit the new copy. Next week, I hope to write copy for some new landing pages and make some adjustments to the About page.
2. I have two case studies that I need to finish. One of them is written and needs some polish, but I also need to put together all the screenshots and take a hero photo. The other case study is substantially larger. I haven’t written it yet. I also have a documentary planned out about the project. I’m working on the script and the storyboards for that documentary now as well. My goal is to get both of these case studies done this quarter so I can throw a launch party at a local brewery (a fun way to give back to your community).
3. I am heavily documenting all the work I’m doing for my church in an effort to make a larger-scale series of videos/mini-documentaries about that project. I think this is going to be a seven-part series, but it might be less. If I start releasing these this quarter, I’ll be thrilled, but I have a feeling I’ll be done the project long before I’m done making the videos.

The priority for me is rewriting the copy throughout the site so I can reposition the sort of work I’m doing. I have been focused on strategy and strategy-led design for a couple years now, but I haven’t updated my site to talk about this change in my approach. It’s high time I do that.

And with that, it’s time to get back to it. As always, thanks for reading.

Nathan