The antithesis of slop. It's been a few years since I'd attended the SF Zine Fest. Friend Scott Boms had a table with his Matter Editions wares, and it's a 10-minute walk from home, so Jen and I had to go. Held at The Hibernia, it was a treat to actually go into this historic building that I've wondered about for as long as we've lived here.[1] It's a beautiful venue inside, and lots of people were milling about outside, having just gone in or waiting to meet friends to head inside. Masks were required (which we already had), and they were giving out plenty of KN95 masks. Transmission is high at the moment, and I just recovered from my second bout with Covid two weeks ago. Bustling with people! Inside, the venue was delightfully packed. Good energy in the air, and it was pretty tight getting around to seeing makers and their wares. A huge variety of zines in all shapes, sizes, and styles were present, and it warmed my heart. Having made a few zines in the past, it really inspired me to pick up a long-gestating project of making some zines or book-shaped things with the photography and words from the Weightshifting newsletter overland archives. Scott's table, and a photo of the two of us taken by Jen. We found Scott downstairs, chatting with people, and interjected with hugs. I had just received his Lost Memories zine last week, so it was a delight to add his fresh-off-the-overnight-press spiral-bound release, The Tower That Ate People. More people kept coming by, and with the vibrant crowd continuing to grow, we started to make our way out. Matter Editions latest — The Tower That Ate People. (And C3P0's eyes are worked in here). As we passed more tables on the way out, Jen and I remarked to each other that this felt like “the antithesis of slop.” So many young people, getting zines, getting into art. So many hand-drawn, hand-made pieces of art all over the venue. That energy again present in the air, feeling like I was back in my own teenage years in the 90s, when technology was just a means to propel our own innate creativity rather than usurp it. Photocopiers, basic computer graphics for layouts, cut and paste collages. That felt liberating. Today's technology feels imprisoning. Good job, SF Zine Fest. I fucking loved it. That would be over 17 years now. ↩︎ → This looks better on the web → Reply via email Thanks for reading and using RSS!

Collaborative writing is rewarding. In the past few months, I’ve been writing a lot. Not as much here, but for Aphera. Between our newsletter, blog, direct email feedback, and social media networks, I might spin up a draft and then bounce it off Ryan and Juan, or we volley it back and forth. It’s a remarkable thing: we’re absolutely slower by writing collaboratively, but the end product is so much better than if just one of us wrote it alone. At times, we take point on direct beta feedback emails as questions arise that speak to our respective strengths or knowledge. But I’ve been really enjoying the here’s-a-markdown-file-thoughts? approach. And then the subsequent revisions, image additions, and even last-minute PRs. All to say: I enjoy reading the end result because it’s not just a human voice, but a collaborative one, made better each time it passes each of our eyes. → This looks better on the web → Reply via email Thanks for reading and using RSS!

A time, a place, and humans. Let’s take a moment to consider the font, Instrument Serif. Created by the Portland-based design agency Instrument for their own use — along with Instrument Sans — they open-sourced it on GitHub, where it made its way to Google Fonts, in a generous act. And, guess where LLMs love to get fonts? There is something deeply ironic about the sample text on Google Fonts. Instrument Serif went from a cool nod to the condensed serif type beloved by direct-to-consumer brands on Instagram — inspired by the way New Balance, Nike, and Apple approached branding — to the default output of LLM-assisted and vibe-coded web work. Today it’s everywhere. The White House uses it. In all caps, natch. “It’s the fascism font.” Condensed serifs were all the rage back then. The embrace of typefaces like this, and the slurping up of what’s been hot and trendy results in the tell-tale sign of the manufacturer. “Craft will no longer be a moat. The LLMs are getting very good at craft.” A speaker said something to this effect at the recent Design Futures Assembly.[1] I nodded to myself. A while ago, craft and taste were bandied about as untouchable and unreplicable. But there is bad craft and terrible taste. There’s no accounting for it. LLMs are in the cosplaying stage, approximating what’s popular and what’s in the zeitgeist. Aesthetic alone was never a defense. It’s always been easy to copy, mimic, and rip-off design. Another speaker: a mechanical engineer from a hundred years ago and one today could find common ground in process. Technology evolves, but shared understanding persists, and an engineer from then and one from now will still be able to converse. I nodded again. That fundamental knowledge passes through culture, through community, to practitioners who push it further. Culture is the moat. It’s not craft and it’s not aesthetic. It’s always been culture — lived, relational, contextual. The ability to decode what’s happening right now, to encapsulate it, to communicate it through deep experience. Culture can give birth to something that hasn’t been seen, hasn’t been appropriated, hasn’t been followed to death. LLMs can pattern-match around culture, but they cannot be inside it. They cannot live it. A curated gathering of about a hundred design operators across generations hosted by Jeff Veen. We were seated in a squircle — fitting — able to face each other, in the light-filled space. It operated under the Chatham house rule. Disclaimer: I did the identity, branding, and website for the event. ↩︎ → This looks better on the web → Reply via email Thanks for reading and using RSS!

AI makes particle board. As a child, woodworking was part of my school’s curriculum. One of our projects was making a simple sailboat, with the kind of shape and blockiness of those wood toys you see for little kids. From a solid block, we chiseled out the center cavity where the hull was, made a hole for an inserted rounded piece to become the mast, and carved off the sides to make the prow. Decades later, I attended a woodshop class that Jen gifted me. I made a simple side table. With the rig camper we have, I made a dropdown table for the rear barn door. I can make a table today. It would not be great. It would work, for some time, but it would not be the level of craft of the furniture I have in the home. These are mid-century pieces made out of solid joinery employing techniques before glues, particle board and other mass efficiency and machinery made joinery automated. I deeply admire the quality. I know the distance between what I can make and what a master craftsperson can build is a wide chasm. That’s what making with AI feels like today. I know the shape of things well enough to approximate the result. It is disposable, cheap, fast. But, I want more real wood in my vicinity than I want wood chips bonded with glue and lacquered over with plastic. But I don’t want more of it in volume, just enough that I need, will grow with, and appreciate. A piece in our home that I love. Figma Make, Claude Design, etc. are all promising an IKEA-style future: flatpacked designs in a small footprint of a box that you can easily assemble in an hour or two, with a pleasant result. You might not have enough imagination or skill to craft the piece yourself, but you recognize a common conception of decent or good enough, and the low price enables you to attain it. I don’t need more. I need durable, lasting things built with quality, longevity and self-maintenance in mind. I can oil a solid wood table. I can repair the joints if needed. I won’t do that for particle board. → This looks better on the web → Reply via email Thanks for reading and using RSS!