Designer Things

I used to think patchwork was just something grandmothers did with leftover fabric. Then I spent an afternoon at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum in the Big Cypress

I used to think textbook design was basically about slapping some diagrams next to walls of text and calling it a day. Turns out, the whole thing is way

I used to think color was just about aesthetics—something artists threw around to make paintings look pretty. Turns out, color theory is this whole intricate

I used to think visual design was mostly about making things look pretty. Turns out, the way elements connect on a page—literally, the lines and proximities

I used to think straight photography was just about refusing to crop. Turns out, when Paul Strand and Edward Weston started this whole movement back in

I used to think design was just about making things look good. Then I stumbled into a workshop in São Paulo where a Brazilian designer named Pedro de Souza

I used to think fashion and graphic design were separate universes—one draped in silk, the other pixelated on screens. Turns out, they’

I used to think cultural appropriation in design was just about catching bad actors—like that time a major furniture brand slapped Navajo patterns on flasks

I used to think tattoos were just about aesthetics, maybe a little rebellion. Then I spent three weeks in Hawaii talking to practitioners of kakau—the

I used to think brand identity was just logos and color palettes. Then I spent three months interviewing neurodivergent designers who’