Studio Missive #4

Hi friends,

August is usually one of my favourite months of the year. I like the dog days of it. Something about it makes everybody move just a little slower, even when we’re tempted to start accelerating into the pace of the fall. I like to linger in this space as long as possible. 

Until the wasps get drunk on nectar and we reignite our longstanding war with one another. I will destroy them all. (But that’s another newsletter.)

What’s inspiring me

1. “If so much of the universe is made up of emptiness, what does that mean to people like us, living on a tiny speck in the middle of all of it?” Josh Worth made an incredible website that asks an important question: what if the moon were one pixel? How long would it take you to scroll through the solar system? This is a unique, hilarious, and surprisingly poignant experiment that’s well worth your time, and a great example of what the modern web can be. This is a smart multimedia experience. It turns out that space has a lot of… space.
2. Adam Mastroianni wrote about how we’re all crazy, particularly when it comes to do the jobs we do. This essay is basically about what it means to do the jobs we do, and it’s a great read because it emphasizes how unbelievably boring almost all our jobs are. From Mastroianni: ​“When people have a hard time figuring out what to do with their lives, it’s often because they haven’t unpacked. For example, in grad school I worked with lots of undergrads who thought they wanted to be professors. Then I’d send ​‘em to my advisor Dan, and he would unpack them in 10 seconds flat. ​‘I do this,’ he would say, miming typing on a keyboard, ​‘And I do this,’ he would add, gesturing to the student and himself. ​‘I write research papers and I talk to students. Would you like to do those things?’ ”
3. I’m in a depressive bout at the moment. (Right now, my spirit animal is Jason Segel being musically self-loathing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.) I’ve had chronic depression for decades. (Even writing that reminds me I am probably older than I think I am.) I often think a lot about productivity when I’m depressed, because I find working hard to be a soothing balm against most inner demons. I was reminded of that this week by James Clear’s latest newsletter: ​“Working on a problem reduces the fear of it… Action relieves anxiety.” I’ve also been thinking a lot about Austin Kleon’s best advice for getting things done: ​“Apply ass to chair” and ​“open the document, stay in the document.” You can get a lot done if you’re willing to stare at the work until you’re so bored you decide you have nothing better to do.

What I’m working on

This week, everything I’ve done is kind of under wraps. It’s all been client work for days. 

But some good news! I’ve been working on one product for years, redesigning the entire thing from the ground up. It’s a large, complicated platform, and I’m the only designer. Nobody working on this has dealt with anything so large in scope before. I’m told it launches later this month, which means I’ll be able to share it and write about it here. I’m very excited to reveal it, because then it means I can finally talk about it. Folks, it’s been a lot of work for a very long time. (I’ve already started V2 of most of it, as one does.)

It’s one of two major launches happening this year that have both required large investments in time and energy. I can’t wait for both of them.

Thanks for reading. Stay curious and try to eat some tacos this week.