Designer Things

I used to think bold text was just, you know, regular text but fatter. Turns out the relationship between bold and regular weights in typography is way

I used to think light in paintings was just about brightness. Then I spent three months staring at Fitz Henry Lane’s Brace’s Rock in a Boston

I used to think Romanticism was just about swooning poets and dramatic sunsets. Turns out, the movement that swept through Europe in the late 18th and

I used to think Post Internet Art was just people making memes with existential captions. Turns out, it’s way more tangled than that—and maybe more

Cap height is one of those measurements you never think about until you’re staring at two fonts that technically have the same point size but somehow

I used to think focal points were just about making something stand out. Turns out, they’re the entire nervous system of a composition—the way your

I used to think regenerative agriculture brands all looked the same—earthy browns, handwritten fonts, maybe a wheat stalk if you were lucky.

I’ve been staring at bathroom doors for longer than I care to admit. The evolution of gender-neutral bathroom signage isn’t just about swapping

The thing about Neo Expressionism is that it didn’t ask permission. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while the art world was still genuflecting

I used to think grid systems were just about making things look tidy. Then I spent a week digging through Theo van Doesburg’s manifestos—the ones