Essays and notes · since 2019
Mostly on grid paper first, and usually in the morning. The long version is in The Grid Paper Year.
Reading, by the numbers
See it move
Notes that arrive with the sentence they belong to
On a wide screen each note sits in the margin beside its line. On a phone it opens right under the paragraph. Hover a number and its note lights up.
Everything, in order
The Undo Button Is a Moral Position
9 min
The most generous feature in any piece of software is the one nobody puts on a landing page.
Software That Waits
2 min
A pencil has never once asked me whether I'd like to turn on notifications.
Against the Badge
2 min
I once counted fourteen red badges on my phone before breakfast, and not one of them was urgent.
A Studio of One
2 min
When I left my last job, I thought the difficult part would be finding clients.
Pricing the Afternoon
2 min
An hour is a strange thing to sell, because nobody buys one on purpose.
The Grid Paper Year
2 min
Grid paper is the cheapest design system ever made, and it has never crashed.
Reading in the Margins
3 min
The best conversations I have ever had with a book happened in its margins.
What the Tram Taught Me About Latency
2 min
Nobody in Lisbon complains that tram 28 is slow. They complain when they can't see it coming.
Start here
Three essays, in the order I would read them
1
Tools · 9 min
The Undo Button Is a Moral Position
The longest one, and the argument the rest of this site hangs on: how expensive should a mistake be?
Read it →
2
Craft · 3 min
Reading in the Margins
Why the notes sit beside the text instead of at the bottom of the page, and what that does to a paragraph.
Read it →
3
Work · 2 min
A Studio of One
Four years of working alone, in Lisbon, and what I would tell the person who is about to start.
Read it →
Notes
Note
Made a list of tools I have used for more than five years. Every single one opens fast and says nothing when I'm not using it.
Link
Still the best argument for putting notes beside the text. Most of what this site does with sidenotes started here.
Quote
“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.” Blaise Pascal, 1657.
Note
Year two of answering email on Thursdays. One client now does it too. Small wins.
Link
I keep a channel of interfaces that feel calm. It's the closest thing I have to a mood board.
Note
Turned off every badge on my phone for a week. I did not miss a single thing that mattered.
Note
Ordered ten more A5 grid notebooks. Notebook ten of the grid paper year begins Monday.
Quote
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.
Note
You hear tram 28 two streets before you see it. Best loading state in the city.
Note
If a product has no undo, it has decided that your mistakes are your problem. Worth noticing.
Link
Spent another afternoon at the National Tile Museum. Five hundred years of one square, repeated.
Note
A client asked what an afternoon costs. Easier to answer than an hour ever was.
Series
Complete
The Quiet Software
Three essays on software that stays out of the way: undo, waiting, and the badge.
Ongoing
Notes from a Small Studio
What running a studio of one has taught me about time, money and saying no.
Complete
A Lisbon Notebook
Three essays written in and about the city: trams, tiles and a year of grid paper.
On the shelf
What I am reading, and what I wrote in the margins
Letters
What readers write back
The Sunday letter
One essay, three notes, nothing else. Every other Sunday.
Forty-one issues so far, 2,140 readers, no tracking pixels and no sponsors. Read the last four before you decide.
Set in Newsreader
Geist and Geist Mono
Grid paper, 8 px
Pencil blue on paper
Day and Lamp themes
Written in Lisbon
Built in Framer
No tracking, no noise