Designer Things

I used to think mermaidcore was just another Instagram aesthetic—until I spent three months analyzing how oceanic fantasy visuals actually construct their

I used to think subjective photography was just a pretentious way of saying “artsy shots that don’t follow the rules.”

I used to think corporate logos were just, well, logos. Then I spent three years watching companies tear apart their visual identities every time a new

I used to think alignment was just about making things look neat. Turns out, the human eye is wired to seek patterns—and when elements on a page don’

I used to think concert posters were just, you know, posters. Then I spent an afternoon in a cramped basement archive in San Francisco, flipping through

I used to think fonts were just, you know, fonts. Then I started noticing how every major political upheaval in the last few centuries seemed to drag typography

I used to think cluttercore was just hoarding with better lighting. Turns out, the aesthetic movement that’s been flooding Instagram feeds and TikTok

Neo Surrealism didn’t announce itself with a manifesto. I used to think the original Surrealists—Dalí with his melting clocks, Magritte painting

I used to think staged photography was just, you know, setting up a shot. Turns out the whole thing is way more complicated—constructed photography isn’

I used to think empty space was just, well, nothing. But here’s the thing—designers have known for decades, maybe centuries, that the areas where you don’