Hi, everybody. I have some nice things for you to notice today.

🛠️ Griddy icons

Sleek, professional looking icons with a utilitarian vibe for your latest project.

🗞️ Graphic Rebellion: the women who made West Coast Modern via A Rabbit’s Foot

A profile on Sister Corita Kent, Betye Saar, and Ruth G. Waddy, who took the visual language of commercialized America in the 1960s and translated it into a new graphic movement colored by faith and resistance. Corita Kent used grocery store packaging and canonical paintings as study material for her students and both served as sources of inspiration for her work.

🎨 Cerca branding by Saint Urbain

This brand’s illustrations really charmed me. Dating app branding can be pretty similar across the board but I loved that they took a sweet approach to the visuals, with the hand drawn graphics focused on proximity and affection. So cute!

🗂️ Design principles via stu dot xyz

A curated collection of design principles.

💡 Design strategies

Not to be confused with design principles, these are digital flash cards to guide you through your next project.

🎥 The origin of Lorem Ipsum via Open Culture

A really interesting dive into the origin of the placeholder text that is often thought to be Latin or gibberish but it’s a little bit of both. If you look up the history of Lorem Ipsum, anywhere you look, it will tell you that it was invented by a typesetter in the 1500s, but it turns out that was completely made up.

📖 Framework 105 by Parsons School of Design

The latest in Parsons’ annual publication sharing student work for the 2025-2026 academic year, with writing by . I love being able to feel the pulse on design education and work students are producing. Very cool.

Some more things worth noticing:

🌀 Link Bouquet via App Star

Make a bouquet of links for your friends and loved ones! Sort of what I do here on the newsletter if you think about it…

Here’s one I made for you.

🗞️ The New Grocer via Snaxshot

This essay tracks how grocery stores went from providing basic needs to providing us with even more markers of status and identity. It touches on slotting fees, the illustion of choice, and the role design plays in all of it. A thought provoking piece I’ll think about every time I go grocery shopping. It also reminded me of the great book The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr.

🌀 Cursor park by Chris Shank

Walk around, sit your cursor down, take a load off.

🗞️ Remembering David Hockney via LACMA

A sweet look back at David Hockney and his work by his friend, Stephanie Barron, the head curator at LACMA. They met at a gallery opening in 1976 where he drew on people’s t-shirts and they remained close for 50 years. He was an artist who lived life curiously, with intention.

“Each morning I would awake in L.A. and be greeted by an emailed iPad drawing from David, reminding me of all the beauty in the world. “Don’t worry,” he’d say with his characteristic sly wit, “they can’t cancel the spring.” He helped many of his friends get through those dark and lonely days. He saw the world like no one else.”

TTYL

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Welcome to Things Worth Noticing—a series to spotlight other creative minds and their irl/url finds.

Today on the newsletter we have Brooklyn-based creative director Lyanne Dubon-Aguilar.

Lyanne Dubon-Aguilar’s things worth noticing:

📝 Soderbergh Media Diet (SEEN, READ 2025)

I love reading through Steven Soderbergh’s SEEN/READ lists, and last year I decided to start my own. It’s just a note in my phone but it brings me a lot of joy. I don’t track daily the way he does (just monthly), and I only log the things I actually finish. It’s fun to watch my tastes shift month-to-month, how one thing can lead to another, and what leaves a lasting impression.

📚Indie Press Display @ Greenlight Bookstore

Greenlight is my favorite local bookstore, and I’ll happily spend an afternoon perusing its aisles. The highlight is the indie press display, which without fail has served up some of my most memorable reads. Most bookstores have staff picks or display corners like this, and it’s absolutely worth a go.

🪄Gustavo Dudamel Conducts

I’ve been delighted by Gustavo Dudamel’s inaugural season at the New York Philharmonic. He leads with infectious passion and clearly adores his craft. The way he brings music to life feels like watching magic happen in real time.

🎬 Support your local film club (Cinema Rodrigo)

I’m a huge fan of local film clubs (they’re having a moment, start one with your friends!), and the fine folks at Studio Rodrigo, who run Cinema Rodrigo, are my home base. Every month Aldo and the crew curate a film for us to see, plus some light reading. The ritual has opened me up to all kinds of films, and to a whole new community. And the best part is sitting around a table afterward, talking about what you liked or didn’t like, arguing and laughing.

🪦 RIP NYT Obituary Section

Some of my most rewarding daily reading comes from the NYT obituaries. There’s nothing more inspiring than lives lived. I always learn a great deal and come away moved by the stories. You’ll find everything: scientists, artists, activists, politicians, and more. Bonus: don’t miss the short NYT piece about the Morgue, where Jeff Roth and team preserve the physical photo archives and clippings behind the obituaries.

🔌 Lyanne’s plugs

There’s so much amazing writing happening right now. To add to your (virtual) nightstand, here’s a few favorites:

Fresh Mercado, Salosierra, Cruel Summer Book Club, Imagination Recovery, Alligator Tears, The Minimizer, and The Small Bow (including an essay on local libraries I cannot stop thinking about).

And for your physical nightstand: Inner Nature a collection of unearthly images of the natural world by photographer and digital artist Female Pentimento.

María Vargas Aguilar: You were on the AIGA NY board for six years — that’s a long time to be embedded in the design community. What did that role entail and how did it change how you see the industry?

Lyanne Dubon-Aguilar: Serving on the AIGA NY board was a huge honor. AIGA NY was there for me when I was first trying to make sense of the design industry. In high school I’d take the train in from NJ for events, and I really appreciate how the chapter made the industry feel accessible. On the board, I started on the programming group organizing events (full circle!) and later moved to the executive group as president, where I worked to build financial literacy and demystify finances for board operations. My biggest takeaway is that we should strive to be a community first and an industry second. This means having hard conversations, taking feedback, and learning in the open to make space for all.

MVA: A decade at the same company is genuinely rare, especially in a creative field. Etsy has changed so much in that time, and so has the way we work as designers. What's the biggest shift you've had to make in how you think/ work/ or lead?

LDA: No one is more surprised than me that I've been in one place for over a decade. So much of it comes down to the people I've worked with and how they've pushed me. My biggest shift has been speaking up and taking more risks. My instinct as a designer is to reach for the solution I know will work, but the work gets better when I start there and then push out towards the riskier idea, or the one I have heart for but doesn’t work … yet. You don't always get it right, but life goes on, and there's always something new to learn next time.

MVA: Do you have any superstitions or weird rules you’ve made up for yourself while working?

LDA: I love this question! My one rule is an empty desktop, downloads folder, and recycling bin, even if that means making a folder called “Desktop” to stash things mid-project. Everything lives in the cloud now anyway, so there’s something refreshing, and mildly chaotic, about finishing a project, watching it go live, and deleting it off my machine 💨

MVA: What's been tugging at your attention lately, even if it feels small or random?

LDA: I recently finished The Coin by Yasmin Zaher, and there’s a section about the different schedules New Yorkers keep that I haven’t been able to shake.

“You leave your apartment every day at the same time, get on the same train, stop at the same convenience store on the way home, always at the same time. I thought about that often, how there were millions of people in the city ... to whom I had no access, because we were living on different schedules. This also meant that I shared time and space with a finite group of people and no matter how many times we came across one other, we would always be strangers.”

It made me think about how to go out of my way to see other parts of the city, and to experience it in rhythms other than my own.

MVA: Go to font?

LDA: Georgia.

MVA: How do you organize your tabs?

LDA: Haphazardly (I bookmark everything).

MVA: What do you like to wear when you work?

LDA: Jumpsuits

MVA: Little treat of choice?

LDA: Peony tulips from Trader Joe’s.

MVA: Song/album/singer you’re into right now?

LDA: Air’s Tiny Desk Concert

Isn’t she great?

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Welcome to the Staring at the Ceiling Second Anniversary Special Newsletter Celebration Email where I look back and share my thoughts on my favorite things I’ve shared this year.

Let me reintroduce myself for those new around here. I'm a graphic designer formerly based in NYC and now in Tucson, and for two years I've been sending this newsletter full of links, tools, and observations to the inboxes of people kind enough to let me.

I'm really glad you're here. If someone you know might like this newsletter, share it with them.

DESIGN

🖍️ BRAND WORK

I’ve noticed I haven’t been sharing as much brand work lately, and instead I’ve been sharing way more tools and articles. My favorites I’ve shared were Jupi and Harinas La Encarnación—both really stayed with me and I look back on them often when I’m looking for inspiration on a new project.

Unicode / Creative direction for Sarah Eisman Studio / NYC FC / Jupi / Harinas La Encarnación branding / Youtube at 20: designing a brand that lives in culture

🛠️ TOOLS

I have gotten sooo much better at finding good tools that go beyond the typical gradient makers (shout out gradient makers) so it’s been fun to get to expand my toolbox and share them with you all. The ones I rely on often are Handy arrows, Font Interceptor, and Tin Eye.

Pantone color calculator / Museo / OG Image Gallery / Rethinking color theory / How to archive your work digitally / Shortcuts dot design / A guide to working with clients / Studio Morflax / TinEye reverse image search / GridType tool / 70+ tools for folks who like to draw / Media cheat sheet and paper size cheat sheet / Font interceptor dot com / Pigment / Pattern punch knit / How to make a website for your creative work / Design portfolio playbook / Shader Gradient dot co / Site building templates / Handy arrows dot com / Tools for better thinking / Pica, a better font manager / Risograph printing tools

💡 IDEAS

Five rules for collaborating with yourself / Interviewing tips for a graphic designer / Ways to find inspiration offline

🗂️ INDEXES AND ARCHIVES

These have been transformative to how I collect inspiration because we all need to break out of Pinterest, Cosmos, and Are.na sometimes. Brand Guidelines, Freefaces Gallery, and the O’Keefe archive have been great sources to pull from.

Fictional brands archive / Brand guidelines dot net / Typographic Posters dot com slash archive / Dead Simple Sites / Atipo illustrations / How designers describe themselves / Textures collection / Color disruptions / Deck dot gallery / 191 social proof examples / CASCA Archive / Online Letterform Archive / Zettelerk Archive for everyday printed matter / Freefaces dot gallery / CalArts Poster Archive / ASCII Art Archive / Type dot lol / Access O’Keefe

🗞️ ARTICLES

There was a bounty of smart and thoughtful design writing this year. The ones that stuck with me the most were buttholes and Barnaby’s Futura fantasy. Buttholes’ sharp observations have made me look at all AI branding differently since reading it.

Why do AI company logos look like buttholes? / Los letterings bordados de Maite Canet / Design literacy in the age of intelligent automation / The art of dailiness / On artists and hopelessness / A collection of fruit stickers / Authoritarian by design / A short history of the business card / Crazy Fairy Tales illustrations / On AI images and sketchy realism / 2025 recurring trends in design / Best book covers in 2025 / Six illustration trends for 2026 / How to create a typographic hierarchy / The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute proves that subcultures are thriving more than ever / The End of Analogue / Designing the Powerpuff Girls / Barnaby’s Futura Fantasy / How to train your taste as a designer / The world needs a new tech diet; here’s how designers can help / A look inside the NYT magazine redesign / Balancing meeting and focus time as a designer / Is the internet making culture worse? / What creatives unlearned after graduation

🔠 TYPOGRAPHY

All time best typeface has to go to the one on the Mr. Plum receipt, I think.

Cordier Script / Soft Type / Good Glyphs / Vibes-based Google fonts / Free typefaces / A Mr. Plum receipt / Pixel Fonts / Southwest inspired fonts / Eraser typography

📖 BOOKS

Building my design library has been fun not only because I get to own these books but also because I get to share them with you! Tools Magazine is such a cool annual publication worth investing in and Origen Mexico is one of my favorite books in my house.

Good by Design / Digital Art: 1960s–Now / Duchamp’s Last Day / Hands on research for artists, designers & educators / Graphic Fest 2 / Origen México / The Look of the Book / About Looking / PALETTE pack / Tools Magazine #05 – To Spin / The Atlas World of Embroidery / Hybrid: Curiosity in All Things / Pretty Ugly / Printable / Manuals: Design and Identity Guidelines / Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Style

🌀 MISCELLANEOUS

Designer as writer / Design the next iPhone / Chimeric Worlding / The Complete Review website / Color memory game

MORE THINGS WORTH NOTICING

🎙️ INTERVIEWS

I started doing interviews this past year! It’s been very cool getting to talk to other creatives for the ‘sletter. More to come.

Check them all out.

Madeleine Voge / Rose Anderson / Kara Haupt

🎶 MUSIC

Good tunes.

The Background by Third Eye Blind / Si tu vois ma mère by Sidney Bechet / Barracuda by John Cale / Someone to Call My Lover by Janet Jackson / Souvenirs by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru / 2025 spring/summer playlist / thank you for recording by Oklou / Gymnopédie No. 1 by Erik Satie / 300 dreams by After / Faster by George Harrison / Lost Friends by Starter Baby / Fate Insurgency by The Level

🗞️ ARTICLES

I get more quirked up with these, especially as the year has gone on. I really love all of them for different reasons, whether tender, sweet, or quirky.

Tender:Pope Francis’ aesthetics of humility, tennis is the opposite of death, conciousness

Quirked up: the mystery of blue raspberry, how the fork almost tore apart society, secret history of chia pets

How to write with style / Pope Francis’ Aesthetics of Humility / The cult of the American lawn / Low-risk flyer / The restored CM G1 House in LA / A review of Adrien Brody’s art / On Chat-GPT weakening our brains / Pearl Jones’ $12k renovated Brooklyn kitchen / An interview with Depths of Wikipedia / The most beautiful gardens / A history of tennis style: men’s and women’s / Sara Hagle on her practice and not thinking about authenticity / Iona Judd’s buttoned up bodice / The ancient art and intimate craft of artificial eyes / Tennis is the opposite of death [PDF] / The mystery of the blue raspberry flavor / All the times the Louvre was robbed in broad daylight / Music is memory / Evolution of casino architecture / How the simple fork almost tore apart the fabric of society / Make something heavy / Ideas aren’t getting harder to find / The Garden of Earthly Delights / How to arrange your desk / Consciousness: On Life, Leo Tolstoy / Christ in the Desert, Ivan Kramskoi / The secret history of chia pets / Peggy Guggenheim made art a daily experience / Artemis II photos / Does cultural crisis breed artistic fertility? / Cartier’s crocodile necklace is an ode to cinema’s femme fatale, María Felix / How is art selected for New York City’s airports?

🛒 SHOPPING LINKS

I’m still regretting not getting those Khaite mules…

1970s Pia and Paula dress / 1950s pink fringed dress / Dansk teak trivet / The Khaite River mules / Ant eater egg holder / Vintage wrought iron bowl / The best Etsy shops for vintage lighting / Year of the horse print / YES tapestry / Sunlight on the Meadow, 2025 / Vintage Roland Garros t-shirt

🖼️ ART, BOOKS, and NEWSLETTERS

All of these are perfect <3

A Plum in One’s Mouth by Cameron Engwall / Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin / Amusing Ourselves to Death / Grocery lists dot org / JP Morrígan 🐦‍⬛ dressing up as birds / In the Deep End: Swimming Pools On-Screen / Wimbledon posters through the years / Photographs of roadside America / Teenagers in their bedrooms in the 1990s / Erasure notebooks / A glimpse of farm life around the world / London work stations in the 1980s / Carpoolers: Workers on their morning commute in Monterrey

🎧 VIDEOS AND PODCASTS

Hip Replacement Ep. 11 with Anu Lingala / Taskmaster Series 19 / The Candy Factory / How Erik Satie invented modern music / How the world’s rarest blue took 10 years to recreate / Making a Tiffany Lamp with no experience / A History of the World According to Getty Images / How to paint a chickadee / Jazzy Spies: 1969 psychedelic Sesame Street animation / Noguchi’s Play Mountain animations / Giuseppe Verdi’s retirement home for elderly musicians

🌀 MISCELLANEOUS

Labyrinth locator dot org is one of the best things I’ve ever shared. I’m always on the lookout for the next labyrinth.

The proposed interior design for The Limelight in 1983 / 30 minutes with a stranger / Space elevator / Wind map / Labyrinth locator dot org / Riding and freedom / Hummingbird migration map / Dicing an onion the mathematically optimal way

🎁 GIFT GUIDE

And that’s it! Hope you clicked on literally every single link.

In annual tradition, I leave you with the song that inspired the title of the newsletter.

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hello everyone. I have a lot of great design tools for you today and a great article about Cartier’s history with María Felix.

🎶 Listen to my friend Ian’s new EP while you read

🛠️ Tools for better thinking by Untools

A curated selection of thinking tools and frameworks for problem solving, decision making, and communication skills. My brand strategist husband loves this one.

🌀 Color memory game

This is a fun game that lets you show off your color and memory skills. My high score is 46.5.

🛠️ ASCII Art Archive

ASCII Art is any sort of pictures or diagrams drawn with the printable characters in the American Standard Code for Information Interchange character set. This is a large collection of text based artworks, organized by category. You can even make your own.

🛠️ Risograph printing tools by Risotto Studio

Risotto is a print and design studio in Glasgow and they offer great tools for those looking to get into risograph printing. They have tons of tools and tutorials, but my favorite is their print simulator, where you can upload your artwork layers and preview how your work will look on a variety of paper.

🛠️ Pica, a better font manager by Josh Puckett

This font manager has color themes, custom collections, and full OpenType support. I feel constantly frustrated by my Mac’s font manager so this feels like a great option.

🗞️ What these creatives unlearned after graduation via Readymag

Happy graduation season! Read about a bunch of creatives who share what they unlearned after they left school. You have to learn it before you can unlearn it!!!

“The most important thing I had to unlearn after school is that no one holds secret knowledge, and no one does things perfectly. What matters is experience, education, and your level of engagement.”

📖 Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Style

I was in Seattle last weekend for my brother and sister-in-law’s baby shower and they took me to one of the best book stores I’ve ever been in, Peter Miller Books. Peter Miller is a lovely shopkeep, who wrote a book about shopkeeping, and he keeps a wonderful shop. I went crazy mode in there and bought 40 lbs worth of stuff, this type book included.

Some more things worth noticing:

🗞️ Does cultural crisis breed artistic fertility? by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

A republished piece from 2017 that remains relevant today. It draws a line from post WWI Germany’s Bauhaus movements to present day and explores what crisis does and doesn’t do to art movements.

“Jazz musician Vijay Iyer worries about the greater pressures placed on artists by the strongman state, but says: ‘Creativity doesn’t ever stop under such conditions. Certain art worlds might get pushed underground or into tight, hidden places. But you can’t block the impulse. That is a simple fact, as old as humanity.’ The role of the artist in this situation is to ‘offer a different sense of what’s possible, and to inspire others to imagine a different reality for themselves. And, we hope, some might be moved to take action.’”

🪑These stools by Atelier Bopa

I had some delicious pastries at Holy Focaccia this Saturday and fell in love with their handmade stools and their almond torte.

📹 Giuseppe Verdi’s retirement home for elderly musicians via Open Culture

To remedy the isolation of old age, opera composer Giuseppe Verdi donated his royalties to the construction and administration of a retreat for retired musicians. Casa Verdi was founded in 1899 and is still running today. It’s a beautiful thing, really.

🗞️ Cartier’s crocodile necklace is an ode to cinema’s femme fatale, María Felix via Artnet

Earlier this week I shared that María Felix is my latest style inspiration. She is one of the most iconic figures of Mexican’s golden age of cinema and is known for being an extravagant and eccentric woman.

In 1975, she commissioned a crocodile necklace while carrying a baby crocodile (in a jar?????) at the Cartier store in Paris. Since then, Cartier has revisited its crocodile collection and it has become a mainstay in their designs, using the same artist who made the original.

🗞️ How is art selected for New York City’s airports? via Hyperallergic

LaGuardia Airport is home to art pieces that make you go “huh?” and “oh, sure.” This article dives into how this art gets there, the 6–8 figure cost, and the mysterious art selection process. I was left with a lot of questions and I hope they get answered someday.

🛒 Vintage Roland Garros t-shirt via Vintage Court Collection

Happy Roland Garros to all!

Goodbye!

In case you missed it:

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If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hi!! Let’s get into it!!

🛠️ Site building templates via Cargo

Such a great resource and alternative to Wix/Squarespace for building your portfolio. They have soooo many beautifully designed templates for only $14/ month.

🗞️ A look inside the NYT magazine redesign by

Elizabeth Goodspeed talks with creative director Gail Bichler about all the new decisions made for the magazine—typography, print vs. digital, and format. This is as much a visual rebrand as it is a rethink of how the NYT positions their magazine in a changing media landscape.

Alternatively, here’s a more cynical, media-insider read: NY Mag wonders whether the NYT needs a magazine at all.

🛠️ Handy arrows dot com

A great bounty of hand-drawn arrows in tons of styles, downloadable as SVGs.

🔤 Southwest inspired fonts by Meg Burke

Great display typefaces inspired by the desert. I’m in my desert era!!! 🤪

🗞️ Balancing meeting and focus time as a designer via Readymag

Everyone with an office job (rightfully) complains about how many meetings they’re in all day, so it was interesting to read about how designers deal with it. A few examples: using silent hours, blocking calendar days, and capping client calls in their contracts. One project manager limits their designers’ calls to one hour a week.

🎞️ Eraser typography via Present and Correct

Nothing beats a Pink Pearl.

📖 Manuals: Design and Identity Guidelines

This feels like one of those must-have graphic design books. It features 40+ printed and expertly crafted brand guidelines for brands like NASA, Knoll, and Bell Labs.

Some more things worth noticing:

🗂️ Access O’Keefe by The Georgia O’Keefe Museum

A digitized archive of all of the artist’s known works. My favorites are all the photographs of her house.

🗞️ The secret history of chia pets via National Geographic

A really interesting dive into the centuries-old origins of chia pets in Oaxaca as religious offerings during Semana Santa to symbolize new life before Easter.

Mexicans 🤝 little guys.

🗞️ Peggy Guggenheim made art a daily experience via AD Italia

A cool profile of one of the best art girls to ever do it, Peggy Guggenheim. To a gallery opening, she once wore one earring by Calder and one by Tanguy to demonstrate her impartiality between abstract and surrealist art.

🗞️ Is the internet making culture worse? by

Such a great and balanced read about what the internet has done to criticism in the 21st century. Nguyen argues that great art movements have always needed critics to champion them, but what happens in an age where everyone is a critic?

Loved this piece!!

“These are dispiriting times. But I refuse to believe that the past will always be better than the future, that art and technology are inevitably opposed, that Silicon Valley can only destroy — instead of transform — cultural innovation. And I refuse to believe that more participation leads to a degraded cultural ecosystem. We can’t go back to the past, but that may be a good thing; there were millions of people who were denied full access to the cultural sphere because of their gender or race or sexuality. People who would have never made it into the inner sanctum of American culture — even at a defiantly countercultural publication like the [Village] Voice — can now, for the first time in history, publish from anywhere and reach an audience everywhere.”

📺 Noguchi’s Play Mountain animations via Colossal

These animations explore Isamu Noguchi’s playscapes and what his unrealized ideas could’ve looked like. You can go see them at the Noguchi Museum in Queens through September 13th.

“In 1933, Noguchi proposed redeveloping an entire New York City block into “Play Mountain,” an enormous topographical project that would be unstructured and open-ended. Rather than have swings and swift metal slides, for example, Noguchi wanted earthen steps, a bandshell, and a large hill for sledding and gathering. The idea was that it could be just as fun in the winter as in the summer and stimulate kids’ imaginations more than the prescriptive equipment typical in urban parks. Then-Parks Commissioner Robert Moses rejected the plan, though, and despite efforts to have the project and others of Noguchi’s designs built in New York, none were ever realized in the city.”

🎞️ Artemis II photos via NASA

🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

Hope you learned something cool today byeeeee

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hello, I’m back and I hope you missed me dearly <3. I had the best time at our beautiful gorgeous magical wedding in Mexico City last month, full of joy and dancing. I can share some wedding thoughts when I come down from cloud 9. For now, let’s get back to it.

🗞️ Youtube at 20: designing a brand that lives in culture via PRINT Mag

An overview of Youtube’s latest brand refresh, at its 20 year birthday. A good lesson in a major company designing for continuity and evolution. Though minimalistic, I think the brand work is sleek and playful, and I like that it gives room for the content to shine.

💡 Ways to find inspiration offline via itsNiceThat

The lovely folks at INT tasked several creatives with coming up with mini briefs to get you inspired without looking at your little rectangles.

Tasks include picking random objects from your junk drawer and arranging them artistically, taking an alternate route to a frequently visited spot, and creating a moodboard from things inside your house.

“Use this as a reset – as I often do – to observe how you plan, improvise, and respond when the material doesn’t behave as expected. Pay attention to what changes, what becomes clearer, and how the shift in medium sharpens the way you think. Then bring those insights back to your practice. The goal isn’t to master a new craft – it’s to notice your own creative process from a fresh perspective. Take this opportunity to experiment, explore, and see what it teaches you about how you make, create, and ideate.”

🗞️ The world needs a new tech diet; here’s how designers can help by UX Collective

A good gut-check on dark pattern and addictive design and how we can apply ethics conversations into our work as designers. Hold out until the end for a more optimistic path towards the future.

“As designers, we can play a crucial role in the creation of healthier products and services. Ultimately, we are the ones choosing UI patterns, writing copy, and defining flows and interactions. So it’s on us to question whether we are doing our jobs responsibly. The same way tech addiction is created through design, design can also be used to promote a healthier relationship with technology.”

🗂️ Type dot lol by Mark Johnson

Self-described as “Spotify for typography”, type.lol is a discovery platform to find fonts and foundries from designers around the world.

🛠️ Design portfolio playbook by Mollie Cox

Practical dos and don’ts from a hiring manager on building your best portfolio. I loved how in-depth this guide was, giving the perspective from the person actually reviewing portfolios. Take what you need from it, I think it’s a good resource to have for the next time you work on your portfolio.

🛠️ Shader Gradient dot co

One of those classic little gradient-making tools I love to share. You can edit motion and noise, and there’s even a Figma plugin.

📖 Printable by Victionary

A beautiful showcase of craft in classic and innovative printing techniques featuring projects from around the world.

Some more things worth noticing:

🛠️ How to arrange your desk via NYT

I’m moving soon and I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my new desk setup since I’ll be having my own office (!!!). I thought this guide provided helpful principles for arranging a good workspace without being too prescriptive. However it did say I should buy a beautiful tape dispenser so…

🗞️ Consciousness: On Life, Leo Tolstoy / Christ in the Desert, Ivan Kramskoi via Orthos Logos

An apt reflection by Tolstoy on life and man today paired with a painting by Russian painter and critic Ivan Kramskoi.

“People seek the definition of life everywhere except in their own conscience—that is, the aspiration for good, which is engraved in indelible characters on the human soul. This is all the more strange since all of humanity, in the person of its wisest representatives, beginning with the Greek maxim, ‘Know thyself,’ has always said and continues to say the opposite. All religious doctrines are nothing other than definitions of life, aspirations toward the real, true good, accessible to humankind.”

📺 Jazzy Spies: 1969 psychedelic Sesame Street animation via Open Culture

A dreamy, Yellow Submarine-esque animation for the numbers 2-10 for Sesame Street with music by Grace Slick.

They just don’t make them like they used to…

🛒 YES tapestry by Ashley Brown Durand

Yes!

🖼️ Sunlight on the Meadow, 2025 by Christine So

I’ve been hunting for good art on Chairish and 1st Dibs lately (re: moving) and cyanotypes have been really catching my eye.

Well, that was fun. See u soon xoxo

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

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Hi, welcome back.

A little housekeeping before we get started.

I am getting married next month (!!!!) and have a lot to do until then so you might not be hearing from me until April. Don’t fret, I’ll be back soon.

🗞️ Barnaby’s Futura Fantasy via

An essay exploring the comic strip Barnaby, and how its use of Futura works in tandem with his spare illustrations. It blurs the line between language and image, integrating type as a part of the story.

“In Barnaby’s case, the echoing of form and proportion between lettering and drawings suggests not only that the pictures are read as a kind of type but also that the words are read as pictures.”

🗂️ Poster Archive by CalArts

Dating back to 1995, the CalArts Poster Archive includes 50 years worth of student and faculty work. A great source of inspiration.

🔤 Pixel Fonts by Patrick H. Lauke

Pixel fonts! That’s it.

🗞️ How to train your taste as a designer via ReadyMag

Great thoughts and advice from different designers on honing taste as a primary design skill amid the rise of AI.

“Taste is a deeply individual and emotional thing—it’s hard to explain. But designers find ways to rationalize their choices, explaining why something was done a certain way through data or comparisons. The latter is often the best way to defend a decision to a stakeholder: show references where others have already done it, and it works.”

🛠️ How to make a website for your creative work via The Creative Independent

A thoughtful and practical guide to creating a website for creatives. It walks through clarifying your “why,” identifying your audience, and choosing platforms, with helpful examples included.

📖 Pretty Ugly by Victionary

A collection of absurdist and bizarre illustrations. I love freaky little guys <3

Some more things worth noticing:

🎞️ Carpoolers: Workers on their morning commute in Monterrey by Alejandro Cartagena

For a year, Alejandro Cartagena captured workers commuting to work during rush hour. I had already queued this up for the newsletter when I stopped by a gallery in Tucson this weekend and unexpectedly saw the series in person.

“I think there are so many interpretations because the images are so simple. There is no condemnation of what’s happening, no closed interpretations: There are people in the backs of trucks! There is a bit of humour to a social issue, a lightness where you can also wonder what is really happening. It’s also an intimate space: They’re reading papers, sleeping, chatting with friends. It’s kind of a living room on the back of a truck – things are happening in a living room, but it’s also in a public space.”

🌀 Dicing an onion the mathematically optimal way by pudding.cool

For my nerds.

🗞️ The Garden of Earthly Delights via The Paris Review

A guided viewing of Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych, often interpreted as a warning against sin and excess. Instead, the writer wonders what might happen if we lingered in its pleasures a little longer. A birthday gift to my friend Reid (+ Cameron), who in my mind are the intellectual owners of this painting.

“When I learned that this playful scene was meant to lead directly into hell, I wondered why Bosch decided to make these little guys so cute. Why would he spend so much time and space depicting enjoyment, if it was meant as warning? Something makes me feel we’re getting it wrong—that though endings are inevitable, the middle panel might be where we’re meant to linger. What if the mystery of play is that it may not result in destruction?”

🎞️ Georgia O’Keefe in her home by Dan Budnik

Also at Etherton Gallery, a beautiful exhibition of photos of Georgia O’Keefe in her home. Looking wise and quietly confident.

🎶 Lost Friends by Starter Baby

Check out my friend Michael’s band, Starter Baby. It’s deeply personal music, influenced by indie rock of the 90s and modern emo. It’s also a bunch of guys living out their high school dreams.

Bye!!

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If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hiiii, it’s me again. Hope you’re taking care of yourselves and others.

Here’s what my dad is blasting on the speakers while I write.

🎶 Faster - George Harrison

🖍️ Harinas La Encarnación branding by Rubio & del Amo

This one really took my breath away. Beautifully crafted, with over 9,000 dots making up each illustration, all done by hand.

🗞️ The End of Analogue by

A dive into the analogue revival and looks at how analogue aesthetics have become shorthand for authenticity. A thoughtful read on why texture, imperfection, and handmade cues carry so much weight in a time of AI saturation.

“Designers and illustrators are stuck in a bind: analogue signals value, but digital is what’s feasible. The result is a kind of strategic mimicry. The market is looking for particular cues, and designers have to find a way to hit them. It doesn’t help that glossy, computer-made work can now be mistaken for AI either; clean, high-fidelity digital craft has become suspect by default, making handmade a safer choice. You can think of adding in fake ink splatters a bit like penciling in a beauty mark: an intentional imperfection done to signal authenticity, rather than the byproduct of a real nuisance.”

🗞️ Designing the Powerpuff Girls via

A brief history of how Craig McCracken came up with the iconic, fingerless designs for the Powerpuff Girls. Shoutout to him for making them so fun and easy to draw as a kid.

💡 Interviewing tips for a graphic designer by

Thoughtful and practical résumé and interview tips from a seasoned designer.

📖 Hybrid: Curiosity in All Things by Hybrid Design

An exploration of putting curiosity into your design practice.

Some more things worth noticing:

❤️‍🩹 Support for those impacted by ICE raids

If you feel moved to help, here are some organizations offering legal support and direct assistance to immigrants and refugees right now.

• Stand With Minnesota: A trusted, Minnesota-based directory connecting people to immigrant-led organizations offering legal aid, emergency support, and community care.

• The Florence Project: Provides free legal and social services to adults and children in immigration detention, helping people understand their rights and options.

• RAICES: Provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrants and asylum seekers, with a focus on families and people in detention.

🎞️ London work stations in the 1980s by Anna Fox

🗞️ Make something heavy by

A lovely meditation on the weight of our work and finding purpose.

“Creation isn’t just about output. It’s a process of becoming. The best work shapes the maker as much as the audience. A founder builds a startup to prove they can. A writer wrestles an idea into clarity. You don’t just create heavy things. You become someone who can.”

🌀 Hummingbird migration map via Hummingbird Central

Hummingbirds are migrating north for the winter. Keep an eye out with the help of this map.

🗞️ Ideas aren’t getting harder to find via Asterisk Mag

An interesting read on the perceived slowdown in innovation and new ideas. The slowdown in execution comes from what happens after ideas are discovered: institutions are less effective at helping good ideas scale, spread, and replace weaker ones.

🛒 Year of the horse print by Erin Jackson Raynes

To face the year with strength, not fear. For all my horse girls.

Take care, bye!

In case you missed it:

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Hello and happy new year! I don’t have a single resolution or thought entering 2026. I might switch over to the school year as my primary calendar. New year’s resolutions coming August 2026!

🪩 Some good things on the new year/year in review

2025 recurring trends in design via BrandNew

Best book covers in 2025 via Creative Review

Six illustration trends for 2026 via Creative Boom

🗃️ Zettelerk Archive for everyday printed matter

An incredible archive of printed work by university students in Germany in 2013.

🗞️ How to create a typographic hierarchy by Pangram Pangram

A short and straightforward resource on type hierarchy. It’s always good to brush up on the fundamentals.

🛠️ Pattern punch knit

A really great tool if you like to make your own knitting patterns. You can design your pattern and can preview it at different scales.

🔠 Freefaces.gallery

A curated collection of free typefaces. Go crazy!!

🗞️ The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute proves that subcultures are thriving more than ever via ItsNiceThat

A deep dive into CARI, a volunteer led group that indexes aesthetics, subcultures, and trends that live outside of the exhaustive list micro-trends you see on your feeds all the time. I’ve shared CARI on here before, so it’s cool to learn more about it and how they fit in our fragmented culture today.

“The reason why so many aesthetics exist is baked into our social DNA; the urge to seek out our interests, hold onto them and create communities of like-minded appreciators.”

📖 The Atlas World of Embroidery by Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood

An illustrated history on embroidery and needlework across the world.

Some more things worth noticing:

📺 A History of the World According to Getty Images by Richard Misek

A short film that explores historical footage that has entered the public domain and how it has been held captive behind paywalls all these years.

🗞️ Evolution of casino architecture via Uncube Magazine

A deep dive into the design and psychological choices behind casino architecture and its Baroque roots.

“The 20th century shifted gambling from elite ritual to mass entertainment. In the desert, American developers embraced velocity, signage, and psychology to keep guests engaged. Where Europe used ornament to confer status, Las Vegas used light to sell wonder and used planning to maximize time on device. Design became performance marketing: façades beckoned from the highway, while interiors prioritized throughput, immersion, and a seamless blur of dining, drinking, shows, and play.”

🗞️ How the simple fork almost tore apart the fabric of society via NatGeo

Some great conversation fodder for the next time you find yourself in a lull at a dinner party.

“But when the fork arrived, it carved a sharp divide at the table. Food was no longer something shared warmly by hand; it became something to be pierced, controlled, and manipulated. The fork’s prongs didn’t just stab at food, but also tradition. And, for the wealthy and powerful, that was precisely the point. Europe’s aristocrats and wealthy merchants quickly embraced the fork’s novelty, prizing its sophistication and using it to draw a line between the refined and the five-fingered faithful.”

📺 How to paint a chickadee by tmbstudio art

This is as much a tutorial as it is a relaxing vibe.

HNY TTYL

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Graphic design, visual delights, and things worth noticing, delivered twice a month.

Welcome to Things Worth Noticing—a series to spotlight other creative minds and their irl/url finds.

After a giant cross country move driving from Brooklyn to Tucson, Arizona, I’m back!

Today on the newsletter we have . She is a writer, creative director, and home cook based in Brooklyn, NY. She writes Home Food, a newsletter about home cooking and sustainability, and Saltine, a newsletter about fashion, interiors, and design. She just launched a YouTube show about home cooking. She’s my go-to source for home cooking knowledge (besides my mom). I am so happy to have her here.

Kara Haupt’s things worth noticing:

🎥 Baby Boom (1987): My friends and I just watched this dynamite Diane Keaton movie the other day. Worth the watch for the fashion alone, but goddam, DK’s comedic timing is just fabulous, and there are so many perfect 80s interiors.

Editor’s note: I have to agree, this movie is so good and it’s peak belt-over-blazer DK. It also inspired my mom to make us all our baby food by hand.

🏺 A mountain town’s clay center

It seems like every designer I’ve known has started making ceramics. I have zero interest, for whatever reason, but I love collecting. The Red Lodge Clay Center is a fantastic center and shop in the perfect Montanan mountain town, Red Lodge. Every time we visit, I end up shipping a new piece back home.

🍶 Maiolica ceramics

More ceramics! When I went to southern Italy a few years ago, I fell in love with Italian hand-painted ceramics. You can find beautiful modern pieces by searching for maiolica or majolica, or by manufacturer, like Ceramiche de Simone.

🚶🏻‍♂️ Going for a walk without headphones

The perfect activity for the rural and city dwellers alike. You can hear birds, get a front-row seat for street drama, and strike up conversations with your neighbors.

María Vargas Aguilar: You’re such a great example of an interested and interesting creative person who isn’t defined by their day job. Up until recently, you had a conventional corporate design role as a creative director, and you’ve since turned your interests in cooking, style, and interiors into a thriving newsletter—and now, your full-time gig.

You recently wrote about what you did (and wish you’d done) before quitting your full-time job as a creative director. Now that you’re a few months out from that decision, what have you learned about yourself and your motivations?

Kara Haupt: Oh god, what haven’t I learned?

What has surprised me the most is how much and how often I have to pick myself up and pivot when something isn’t working—sometimes on a weekly or monthly basis. It’s been exhausting, but it’s also been oddly empowering. I feel in control of my life, even though my current circumstances aren’t 100% aligned with my long-term goals. I can see the potential, though, and the psychological freedom of knowing I can change everything the following month or week is more impactful than I expected. Before, I felt like I had to play by the rules because the rules brought me security; now I’ve realized that the rules don’t really exist, and that the only person who will protect and advocate for me and my career is, well, me.

MVA: Being your own boss now means your creative process looks a little different than it did when you were working for a big company. How do you help yourself out of a creative rut or block?

KH: I break work into short pieces. I’m not good at spending all day or all morning on one task—a habit from working in news where every hour and day was different. I give myself fun work as a treat (like shopping and researching for Saltine), and constantly readjust my invented deadlines.

MVA: Do you have any rituals that help you transition into creating mode?

KH: I can’t focus until I put in earbuds and turn on music!

MVA: What’s something you’ve learned from outside design that’s shaped how you work?

KH: Working in journalism absolutely shaped my approach to my own work—everything from copyediting, workflows, fact-checking, and an understanding of “audience.” It gave me a work ethic and attention to detail that will always be valuable.

MVA: What do you like to wear when you’re working?

KH: In the winter, I wear my most comfortable pair of jeans, a workout tank (so I have no excuse to squeeze in a workout), and a big, warm sweater.

MVA: Most used tool in your kitchen?

KH: Probably my chef’s knife (the 6.7” Tojiro)! We have two.

MVA: Little treat of choice?

KH: Dark chocolate that I keep in the freezer.

MVA: Song/album/singer you’re into right now?

KH: I’ve pretty much only listened to Katie Gavin, Lorde, and Holly Humberstone this year. I love a pop girlie.

Saltine

Descriptions of taste.

By Kara Haupt

Home Food

Everybody cooks!

By Kara Haupt

Ok see you next year!!!!!!

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🫵 This is a long one, so you may need to read it in your browser.

Happy gift guide, everyone.

I have been looking forward to sharing this for months!! I was worried I shot myself in the foot by making last year’s guide simply too spectacular and I thought I wouldn’t have anything to share with you this year, but I underestimated my love of stuff and gift giving.

Last year I got a nice shout in The Substack Post’s gift guide roundup, and their description pretty much still holds for this year’s edition. Unique finds, a smattering of new, vintage, and handmade, and a lot of Etsy. All for the people in your life who have an inclination towards beautiful things.

The categories include kitchen, ceramics, candles etc., books, paper etc., accessories, art & prints, jewelry & embellishments, and decor.

Enjoyyyyyyy <3

Please Note: I may earn a commission on some products purchased through links in this newsletter.

KITCHEN

A little sauce pot $35–$64: I use my little sauce pot to brown butter.

Dansk Flamestone Sauce Pot / MOMA Store Porcelain enamel sauce pot

Mezcaleros $40–$176: These can be a lovely housewarming gift for someone who is into mezcal or liquor or little cups.

Glass blown mezcal copitas / Handblown mezcal glasses

A beautiful kitchen tool $30–$95: As someone who cooks and bakes, I love a kitchen tool as gorgeous as it is useful.

Masienda tortillero / Blip by Alessi spoon rest / JB Prince grill press / Hue Gah Home butter knife set / Leif Escher salt & pepper grinder

Egg cups $5–$25: For eggs or candles.

META stainless steel egg cup / Spiral Calder-esque egg cup / Crazy vintage egg cup

French fruit basket $5–$25

Vintage French fruit basket / French wire fruit basket / Primitive wire egg basket

A good cook book $5–$28

Pati Jinich, Treasures of the Mexican Kitchen / Win Son Presents a Taiwanese American Cookbook / Apartamento Cookbook #9: Sandwiches / Entertaining by Martha Stewart

To pair with the kitchen gear $106–$158

Handmade recipe box / Handmade wooden cutting board / A book stand for the cook book

CERAMICS

A gorgeous mug $20–$200: Drinking a beverage is an experience that can be majorly upgraded by drinking out of a $200 cigarette mug. Or a Snoopy mug.

Swiss Vintage Rössler coffee cup set / Striped ceramic mug / Cigarette mug by Joseph Aligieri / MOMA Store Snoopy mug / MOMA Store Peanuts gang mug / Little mouse mug / Superfluites tomato red frilly mug

A freaky little vase $26–$184: I especially love the knitted vase which is made using a long process knitting around a balloon, popping it, and dipping it in clay multiple times.

Vintage figurine vase by Andrea Vertel / Mender Maker knitted bud vase / Small Ikebana vase / Handmade blueberry bud vase

A weird and beautiful bowl $34–$104: For putting stuff in it.

Wabi Sabi bowl / Molcajete style bowl

CANDLES ETC.

A handmade candle holder $35–$130

U shaped candle holder / Candle box by Ella Roze Bandouveris / Perriand metal candle holder / Lichen Galvanized wall candle holder

A sculptural candle $30-$34: For admiring, not for burning.

Oaxacan floral taper candle / Big Night Gruyere Candle / Onora flowered candle / Shop Biddy sculptural votive candle / Beeswax animal candle

An incense burner that looks like a house $16-$30: For every type of home: Irish, Southwest, and log. Use them with incense bricks for optimal cutie vibes. My mom always had these burning growing up.

Tuft Peat Irish cottage incense burner set / Casa incense burner / Paine’s Products log cabin incense burner

A beautiful scented candle to pair with the candle holder $75-$108: Make your house smell like the Ralph Lauren store on Madison Ave!!!!!!!

Ralph Lauren flagship store candle / Xinú Fuegozen candle (favorite candle of all time) / Maison Louis Marie Candle No. 2 / Brooklyn Candle in Santa Fe

BOOKS

Books on interiors $50–$225: These are great for people with growing collections of coffee table books.

Edward Ruscha Los Angeles Apartments / Vintage Luis Barragan coffee table book / The International Book of Lofts

Art and photography coffee table books $90–$120: The more specific the better.

Tennis ‘87 / Foods by Shimpei Asai / World Cup ‘78 / Flora by Robert Mapplethorpe / Perpetual motive, Man Ray catalog book / Picasso sketches coffee table book / California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties / Cloudspotting for Beginners

Picks from last year:

Rest Objects book jewelry

PAPER ETC.

Desk accessories $23–$75: These make great gifts for the graphic designers or makers in your life who get lost in stationery stores.

Benjamin Edgar gravitational cutting mat / Dahle Vantage cutting mat / Ellepi Klizia 97 Stapler / Toyo Steel stackable box / WMS & Co. Stainless Steel task roller

Calendars and planners $26-$48

Before Breakfast desktop notepad / Large Margin pad / 2026 Crispin Finn wall planner / Present and Correct 1Y 52W 365D planner / Present and Correct Notebook chunk / Word of the day calendar / Baa Bazaar weekly planner

Stamps $38-$66: Great for people who bullet journal, scrapbook, or just keep analog records of their life.

Present and Correct Rotary date stamp / Present and Correct Alphabet stamp set / Present and Correct XL number stamp

Good art supplies $29-$45: A travel watercolor set, are you kidding me?

Kitaboshi x Hot Cool Tokyo Japanese colored pencil set / Kokuyo graphic marker set / Kuretake travel watercolor box

Picks from last year:

Casey Rubber Stamps custom stamps

ACCESSORIES

A fun embellishment piece $40-$95: Can’t go wrong with a Snoopy watch.

Timex Joe Cool weekender watch / Timex Snoopy baseball watch / XL hoop belt / Alex Mill Handkerchief scarf in wool

A cutie purse or tote $29-$75

Antique 1920s flapper purse / Antique beaded handbag / Red embroidered Potli bag / Gold embroidered Potli bag / Levi’s Back pocket tote / Baggu nylon drawstring bag

A colorful sock $12-$52: At some point last year I started only wearing colorful socks and I would love 100 more pairs, personally.

Le Bon Shoppe cotton socks / Colorful Standard merino wool socks / Polo Bear trouser sock gift set / Alex Mill Maria La Rosa cotton socks

Picks from last year:

Vintage The Real Real ties / Vintage Etsy ties / Any Baggu bag

ART & PRINTS

A beautiful art print $44-$178: Art is personal so go with your heart. These are some prints and paintings I liked.

Pomegranate imposto still life / Diet Coke still life / Green dancer print / Bottle still life oil painting / Original landscape painting / Libby Haines Dinner Remnants print

JEWELRY & EMBELLISHMENTS

A unique piece of jewelry $37-$180: Jewelry can be hard to shop for, but I think it’s better to go bold than to play it safe. The person you’re shopping for knows what they like in their staple, every day pieces so you might not nail their signature style. Pick something unique that reminds you of them. You never know what will hit…

Abstract silver pendant necklace / Bunnie Studio Rework two necklace / Dunton Ellerkamp Owen ring / Faris Rolo stud earrings / Kara Yoo Celeste earrings / Kara Yoo Maeva necklace / Molecula jewelry

An interesting brooch $20-$114: You know I love a brooch.

Taxco modernist brooch / Chunky bullseye brooch / Vintage Taxco half face brooch / Metal hand brooch / Silk chrysanthemum brooch / Stainless steel minimalist brooch / Brutalist sunburst brooch / Venerable Beads creature beads XIV

A cute hair accessory $11-$30

Pea Lauer vintage candy mold hair pins / Oval hair barettes / Oversized organza scrunchie

Picks from last year:

Personalized Calder style brooch / Bywayof necklaces / Wolf Circus charms

DECOR

A vase with flowers in it $43-$67: For a gracious host.

Mid century mod aluminum vase / Glass ruffled vase / Ferm Living Dedali vase

A gorgeous bowl $53-$62: For fruit or keys.

Vintage silver fruit bowl / Wood duck bowl

A nice lamp $60: Tiny lamps make a house feel like a home. I love putting my small lamps in the middle of my dining table to make me feel like I’m dining at a restaurant.

Zara Home touch table lamp

A framed photo in an interesting frame $31-$72: I think framed photos or mementos are a sweet sentimental gift to give, why not make the frame nice too.

Wood picture frame / Rustic picture frame / Evolution Store Framed monarch butterfly

Jewelry cases (for travel and for home) $23-$95: One of those gifts that feels kind of lame to give but I bet it has a 100% use rate. So useful!

Vintage onyx jewelry box / Vintage wood burl jewelry box / Vintage burl trinket box / Quince leather jewelry box / Areaware cache box / Mark & Graham monogrammed travel jewelry case / Customizable portable wood jewelry box

Random stuff $20-$33: Stuff they can put in their home that is as decorative as it is utilitarian.

Wood carved eyeglasses holder / Beetle shaped boot jack

Picks from last year:

Handmade Calder mobile / Mexican tin nicho

That’s it! Thank you so much for reading <3

Bonus: More holiday guides, gift and non-gift

’s Trash Panic Guide to Holiday Hosting

’s handmade holiday gift guide

’s holiday shop

’s gift guide for a chic picky woman

’s guide to the art of giving gifts

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hi, it’s me again. I am in the middle of a lot of change lately, which is why I haven’t added a ton of flair to the newsletter lately. It’s probably gone unnoticed but I felt that I needed to say it because I want to have the more brain space to devote to S@tC, and I will…soon enough. In the meantime, here are the links for this week. And shout out to everyone who ran the NYC marathon yesterday!!!!

🎶 Listen while you read

🛠️ Font interceptor dot com by MSCHF Mag

Font Interceptor downloads all fonts in use on a website. Use responsibly.

🎞️ Mexico City Design Week

Here are some of my fave items from a CDMXDW event last month. I left feeling incredibly inspired to turn my home into a shrine for stainless steel objects <3 I was particularly charmed by Casa Quieta and all the beautiful light switches, which reminds me: has a great recs for changing out light switches in your home.

🛠️ Pigment by ShapeFactory

A color pairing tool that lets you edit pigment and lighting and lets you search by hue.

🎞️ Crazy Fairy Tales illustrations via Design Observer

A short essay and look at the surrealist illustrations by Czech collagist, Bohumil Štěpán. He often used old packaging labels to add a whimsical child-like quality to his work. Can’t get enough of the stuff.

🗞️ On AI images and sketchy realism by Silvio Lorusso

An interesting read about generative AI tools creating a dissonance between effort and the finished product. Lorusso coins the term sketchy realism: where images that take seconds to generate look perfectly real but feel unfinished.

🗃️ Online Archive by Letterform Archive

An archival feat and endless well of print inspiration from 1800s manuscripts in Arabic to Danish graffiti zines of the 1990s.

📖 Tools Magazine #05 – To Spin

The new issue of Tools Magazine is out, as good as ever. Here’s a list of where you can buy irl.

Some more things worth noticing:

📺 How the world’s rarest blue took 10 years to recreate by WSJ

A really interesting dive into the attempts by artists to recreate my favorite color, Yves Klein Blue, after its original recipe was long lost to time. It also opens an interesting dialogue about color ownership and the protection and democratization of intellectual property. Stuart Semple seems like a troll but he brings up some good points about who gets to own the iconic hue.

🗞️ All the times the Louvre was robbed in broad daylight by NatGeo

A fascinating history of the robberies at the Louvre, with one involving a young Pablo Picasso!!!!

📺 Making a Tiffany Lamp with no experience by Pask Makes

My latest YouTube obsession is makers building Tiffany Lamps from scratch. They all say “I have no idea what I’m doing” and then make something incredibly beautiful and technically complex. I love this guy specifically because he talks a lot about craft and making for no reason other than to work with your hands and learn to something new.

🗞️ Music is memory by Daniel J. Levitin

An exploration on music, memory, and the self via an Ella Fitzgerald performance where she forgets the words to Mack the Knife, but continues her performance by making up the words to the song.

He dives into the types of memory (sensory, procedural, episodic, etc.) and how musical memories are remarkably more resilient than others, combining the semantic and emotional systems in our brain in a powerful way.

“Music—even more so than language—is a highly structured medium, meaning that the structure itself can help to scaffold one’s memories.”

Bye! See you next time for S@tC’s annual gift guide spectacular.

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hola readers. Welcome to Things Worth Noticing—a series to spotlight other creative minds and their irl/url finds.

I am so excited to welcome Rose Anderson, head of brand at Alex Mill and writer of The Rose Period, a newsletter about the unusual, special, and unexpected stories of the art world you need to know. She writes one of my favorite newsletters and I am so happy to have her here.

“Other very important things to know about me? I love colors (my favorite color for the past 12 years has been this shade of blue), I could eat soup year-round, and my hair doesn’t really grow past my shoulders (but a girl can dream). When I have an ounce of free time, I do art on the side & call my sister.”

Rose Anderson’s things worth noticing:

🛒 Ceramics you can’t find anywhere else by

Is there anything better than homemade? I think not - especially when it’s this cool. Our creative director at Alex Mill Somsack makes the most spectacular hand-built clay vases, soap dishes, and snack plates. Each is unexpected and totally one of a kind - and it’s hard not to notice his extra special touch: a rock pocketed from a Positano beach, a crackle glaze, a smatter of polka dots.

Get one for yourself but also - it makes the most perfect gift.

📖 A book that changed everything by Lisa Stathoplos and Mary Gabriel

People often ask how I know so much about art - did I go to art school? No. Art history major? Also no. The truth is simple: I read (a lot). If I could recommend one book to kick off your art education, it would be Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel. It’s a sweeping, real-life account of the brilliant women abstract expressionists who shaped the NYC avant-garde scene, yet were too often overshadowed by their famous male counterparts. The book captures mid-century New York in jewel-like detail - what they wore, ate, drank - while capturing a movement that changed art forever. You’ll never look at art the same way again.

🌀 An artist that (rocks),

I was deep in an Instagram rabbit hole when I discovered one of my best finds yet: Betty Rubble NYC, an NYC-based artist who paints absolutely fantastic creations from found rocks. She has a bit of a Warhol pop-art thing going on - taking everyday commercial brands (an Oreo cookie, a rubber eraser, a packet of Instant Ramen) - and making it into art. I DM’d her immediately and already have her working on two commissions - bonus, I learned she’s from Minnesota just like me.

🔌 Stay tuned for more history of color

If you’re down to go on a color journey, read my history of yellow and history of blue. History of red is COMING SOON!!!

María Vargas Aguilar: I love your newsletter and your endless well of knowledge about artists and their worlds. In The Rose Period, you often highlight unknown corners of art history, like your piece on artists having children. At Alex Mill I imagine you’re surrounded by fashion imagery, yet you keep returning to art as a reference point. What makes art the lens you use most often?

Rose Anderson: OK, such a good question. Art and fashion overlap way more than you’d expect. One is always feeding the other. My study of art constantly influences my work in fashion: the colors of a Hockney painting, the layout of an illustrated Vogue spread, the color grading of an old Eames film. And in reverse, fashion shapes how I think about art: the power of editing, the impact of a single strong visual, and the eternal truth that red always sells.

You see it happening on a bigger stage too - like Bode’s recent collab with the Whitney. To me, a well-rounded creative is always cross-referencing: art, fashion, music, film. Each lens sharpens the other, and for me, art has always been the backbone that holds it all together.

MVA: When something feels dazzling or momentarily trendy, how do you decide whether it has lasting value — for you, for design, for fashion? What’s your litmus test for distinguishing something trending vs something good?

RA: I think it’s an idea you keep coming back to. It’s funny - it’s not that I don’t notice trends, but for the most part I don’t remember them. What sticks with me are the things that just feel right: a great color combo, a perfect proportion, a detail that’s both surprising and obvious at the same time. If I keep thinking about it over and over, that’s when I know it has staying power.

MVA: What’s a small ritual or habit that helps you feel grounded in your work?

RA: I run the Brooklyn piers most mornings - it keeps my mental health in check.

MVA: Looking back a few years, what’s changed about the kinds of ideas or stories that really excite you now? '

RA: There are SO many ideas out there - and I find the ones that I am most excited by are the ones that have a singular point of view. I want a tight focus, a great edit. Way too often people or brands try to do everything - it’s like going to a hamburger place that also serves tacos. I’d rather have a handwritten menu with one appetizer, one entrée, and one dessert - done perfectly.

A few examples? Brooke Callahan’s tie pants, Kenny Harris’s Moka Pot masterpieces, London’s Egg Trading

MVA: Favorite room in any museum in New York City?

RA: The foot of the grand staircase at The Frick - where all three Vermeer’s are usually displayed.

*Editor’s note: I think I have to agree here.

MVA: Little treat of choice?

RA: Bub’s Bakery - it just opened by our office and the banana pudding is to die for (it’s also allergen-free which is sooo important to so many of my friends. Not me - I eat everything!!!!)

MVA: Song/album/singer you’re into right now?

RA: Chinatown by Bleachers with Bruce Springsteen

The Rose Period

The special, unusual, and unexpected stories of the art world that you (and I) should know about.

By Rose Florence

That’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed Things Worth Noticing! If you’d like to be featured in the next guest edit, please reach out :) I’m always looking for new guests.

On a different note, the S@tC gift guide is coming out next month so if you have any questions/requests/queries on gifts and gift giving, lmk!

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hello and welcome.

🎶 Listen while you read

🗃️ CASCA Archive by Victor Yves

CASCA Archive indexes over 5,000 pieces of Northeast Brazilian design work from the 1950s to today, including posters, and book covers. It’s also fully collaborative.

🗞️ A short history of the business card by

A great look at how business cards have changed over the years with changing technology and design movements. I love how hard they went in the 1890s.

🛠️ Media cheat sheet and paper size cheat sheet

Great cheat sheets for all your social, web, and printed needs. Copy, download, compare sizes, you can do it all.

🌀 Chimeric Worlding by Tiger Dingsun

A thoughtful, pedagogical approach to graphic design and worldbuilding, introducing the concept of chimeric worlding: the act of building worlds out of fragments of other worlds. Inspired by literary worldbuilding, Dingsun proposes a layered design practice that weaves public and personal symbols to inspire more imaginative design that breaks from convention.

If you stick around to the end, there are exercises for applying chimeric worldbuilding, like creating your own symbols with their respective colors, scents, and temperaments.

“So much of what is considered ‘good’ or ‘correct’ or ‘legible’ design comes from naturalized conventions of visual hierarchy and structure. Part of this methodology of ‘chimeric worlding’ involves the possibility of co-opting the aesthetics of structuralism, while recognizing it’s inherent arbitrariness. Common graphic design methodologies assert that every element needs to be there for a non-arbitrary reason, but what if the reason for a graphic design decision has less to do with legibility, and more to do with the greater worldbuilding that the graphic designer has already established? Arbitrariness is in fact emancipatory, and enables us to layer multiple logics and systems of knowledge.”

🌐 Websites should look like this

The Complete Review is a 25-year old book review site, with a focus on international fiction; the Literary Saloon blog offers literary news, commentary, and links. Their website design rocks.

📖 PALETTE pack by Victionary

Printed little moodboards organized by color. They make a great gift for any graphic designer in your life.

Some more things worth noticing:

📺 How Erik Satie invented modern music via Open Culture

A great dive into what makes this song so compelling.

“The melody makes its turns, but never quite arrives at its seeming destinations, going around in circles instead — before, all of a sudden, swerving into the ‘minor and dissonant’ before ending in ‘profound melancholy.’”

📍 Labyrinth locator dot org

Find a labyrinth near you.

🗞️ The mystery of the blue raspberry flavor by

An experiment to get to the bottom of the elusive flavor that is blue raspberry. Its origins still remain unknown.

🌀 Riding and freedom via Dragonfly-Eye

A collage-style visual essay of a John Berger interview where he talks about tenderness and the freedom in riding a bike.

“You decide something, and it happens, for good or bad. Where as in the rest of life, inevitably, time is more delayed, or there are many many more constricting considerations or factors, there is more friction if you wish, between decision and consequence.”

Ok that’s it for now, ttyl <3

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hi readers, welcome back. You get three letters this month since last week was a bonus one.

🗃️ Deck dot gallery by Muharrem Şenyil

A curation of beautifully designed decks, not just brand guidelines.

🌀 Designer as writer by Stas Aki

A visual essay about writing as an essential part of design practice via articulating ideas, shaping discourse, and finding voice. It’s a cool web experience, I recommend scrolling on your desktop.

🗞️ Authoritarian by design via Design Observer

In the grand order of things, design falls low on the list of the country’s problems, but I felt the new America by Design initiative is a larger sign of the status of things and what’s to come. Here’s another read providing more context about the history of design and policy in the US.

“‘I don’t want to get mired in the aesthetics.’ (They’re grim.) ‘Let’s look at how the site was built — after all, that’s part of ‘design.’’ The site is heavy, overbuilt, and expensive to load. Not unusual. ‘But imagine you’re one of the millions of Americans on a prepaid ‘pay as you go’ plan, or on a home network with capped, limited data.’ This is a page that is too expensive for plenty of people to view. If it can be viewed at all.”

🗃️ 191 social proof examples

I keep this one close by. If you work in marketing, you might want to too.

🌀 Design the next iPhone by Neal.Fun

In honor of the new Apple releases, here’s your chance to design your own iPhone. Put an antenna on it.

🖼️ This photo of a Mr. Plum receipt via Special Offer, Inc.

This sent me on a quest to find the perfect receipt typeface. No luck yet…

“No graphic designer could truly EVER go as hard as what analog systems do on their own without a ~creative~ person at the helm of the keyboard.
Existential and makes me want to throw up...”

📖 About Looking by John Berger

This book of essays by writer and art critic John Berger eloquently explores the role observation plays in our lives. He writes about our relationship with watching animals in zoos, what photographs of suits evoke, and the works of Rodin, among many other things. Reading it has not only expanded my perspective, teaching me to literally see the world differently, but also deepened my understanding of how to look at and think about art.

Some more things worth noticing:

🗞️ The ancient art and intimate craft of artificial eyes via MIT Press

Artificial eyes have been around for thousands of years and there is a dwindling number of those practicing the craft, with fewer than 200 in the US. There’s something poetic about how difficult it is to replicate the humanity and soulfulness of the person’s original eye, despite centuries of technological advancements.

“The expressive power of real eyes can be frustratingly elusive in the making of an artificial eye. Damage to an eye socket — from an accident, a fire, cancer — is sometimes so extensive that an ocularist cannot achieve full harmony and symmetry and what seems in the best cases like magic. Still, magic does often happen.”

🛒 The best Etsy shops for vintage lighting by

An incredible list worth bookmarking. Look at this lamp, I want to lick it.

🎞️ A glimpse of farm life around the world via Smithsonian Mag

Scroll through these beautiful photos of what farmers looks like globally.

🗞️ Tennis is the opposite of death [PDF] via The Paris Review

The US Open has left a tennis ball sized hole in my heart. This essay is a beautiful and poetic perspective on tennis and life.

“Suddenly you are in an alternate present. The ball is tracing a graceful arc back over the net. It is a kind of communication, your player’s return: a flirting. I’ve ignored that you tried to kill me, says your player’s impossibly gentle slice, and I like you. Tennis is not only sport but spell. By changing force, your player reshapes time.”

🎶 thank you for recording by Oklou

Synth-flute bard electropop realness.

xoxo 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Happiest of Mondays, my friends. 🚨 New segment alert! 🚨

Welcome to Things Worth Noticing—a new, semi-regular series on the newsletter to spotlight other creative minds and their irl/url finds. Each installment will feature a guest editor plus a short interview. Isn’t that fun?

My first guest editor is , a sci-fi & fantasy writer in San Francisco. She runs an underground design agency called The Lads Studio and writes a Substack newsletter called Fantasy Camp for sci-fi & fantasy flash fiction, worldbuilding design inspiration, medieval memes, and more.

Madeleine and I have been on parallel Substack journeys, her newsletter rocks, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to be the inaugural guest editor.

Madeleine Voge’s things worth noticing:

🎞️ Octopus fingers

Some delightful reader from the 15th century annotated this manuscript with octopus fingers. I wish we’d been born around the same time, because we might’ve been great friends.

📖 Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

This audiobook is a new favorite. It is a complete masterpiece of fantasy writing, originally published in 1995. It is so deep and ensouled, I found myself crying on multiple occasions in an outpouring of empathy for the main character, Fitz. Also, it has a theme of animal companionship I will never get enough of in any fantasy world.

🛒 Boot Boyz dot biz

I came across this apparel and knick knack site recently. I’m a sucker for thoughtful design, quality materials, and delicious typefaces. Check check check. I really appreciate the energy they’ve poured into every touchpoint of this designy/fashion experience.

🌀 Outlier

Outlier is a daily puzzle game I did the brand and interactive design for. The game’s mechanics are so clever and satisfying on the mind, and I had the best time choosing warm, cozy colors, rounded edges, subtle animations and rewards systems for the players. My first game, and hopefully not my last!

🔌 Like and subscribe

I’ve recently started making videos, Reels, and TikToks about immersive fantasy and design — everything from logos I love to deep dives into the Twilight franchise. Come follow me on Instagram or Tiktok, I love convening with other creative, writerly, artistic, fantastical people online.

María Vargas Aguilar: On Staring at the Ceiling, I talk a lot about slowing down and noticing the world around us. You recently spent time in the woods to write your novel. What drew you there, and how did your creative process in that environment differ from how you work at home? Did you develop any rituals that were unique to your retreat?

Madeleine Voge: I have a funny problem in the real world. There’s this paradox where I earnestly want to be connected, social, spending time with my friends and exploring the world, and yet I resent the time I’m not alone in my art studio, writing and working quietly on my little creative projects. It creates a constant tension in my life: how can I have deep relationships and pour all of myself into my art and writing.

So that’s how I decided to go away for a month to write in the woods. I was craving some fully detached time where I wasn’t interrupting my days with walks and coffees and calls with friends. I went to a very remote wooded place in Northern California to work on my fantasy novel without any distraction — no work, no cell reception, and no one I knew nearby.

Gosh, did I romanticise this whole experience. From the day I arrived in my little writer’s cabin, I was terrified. I was on high alert all day and night, convincing myself that some stalker or spirit would break down the flimsy door of my hovel in the redwoods. It took about 6 whole days for my body to relax some. Since I was so alone with my thoughts and emotions, I learned with great precision the rhythms of my energy, mood, and imagination. It helped me craft the perfect writing schedule for my day.

7-9 AM: Morning coffee in the world somewhere, a cafe or local co-op. It helps me to have small microinteractions before descending into my fantasy world

9AM -12 PM: Write write write. No distractions, no looking at phone, no research black holes, no revising. Just write.

12-3 PM: Adventure time outside. Walk, hike, go find some coastal views. Sit outside and watch vultures pick at something on the beach.

3-6 PM: Write write write. Revising allowed. Outlining or research allowed. More fun, free-flowing time to remind myself that this is a FUN practice, not a restrictive one.

6 PM - Bedtime: Rewards! Eat a good meal, listen to a podcast, be free!

My favorite ritual of all was small-talking with the local farmers when I drank coffee in the mornings. It was pleasant and low-pressure and helped me understand the foggy little town I’d stepped into.

MVA: Can you tell me about your recent decision to quit your job as a creative director to write your novel full time? What gave you the push to do that and how has that shift changed what excites or inspires you in your work?

MV: No matter how ideal of a full-time job I found myself in, it was as though my body was rejecting the sort of traditional work life. My most recent role as Creative Director could not have been more ideal on paper. I worked from home, with flexible hours, my best friend as Art Director, and a delightful brand. And yet, I was still unhappy and undernourished on a spiritual level. I couldn’t figure it out, but all I knew was that I needed to go as soon as possible. Truly, it was illogical and purely coming from a deeper knowing place. I am not meant to work like this.

At the same time, this fantasy story I’d been cooking up for YEARS in my mind was growing noisier. I decided to quit my job, commit to spending 6 months working on the novel, and see how this dis-ease in my body felt about it all.

BOY did that work. The moment I turned my attention to the great creation burgeoning inside me, I felt the most alive with pleasure and creativity I ever have. It was immediate confirmation that I was moving in the right direction.

MVA: I love your newsletter and your eye. You have an ability to zoom into the fantasy world in a really impressive and delicate way. Like you’re standing in an open field and you find the most beautiful dandelion and you amplify it. Where do you think that instinct comes from? Do you feel like you’ve always approached the world that way, or is it something you’ve cultivated?

MV: This is such a lovely question, and a lovely way of phrasing it. For as long as I can remember, I have had a part of me stowed away in another place. I’m not quite sure how to put words to it — a faraway, accepting place with magic and dark wooded places, and an all-loving creator who welcomes me home. It’s probably the reason I yearn to spend so much time away, holed up in my studio writing and drawing and thinking. It’s my chance to retreat back to that place.

I think that’s where my ability to write and make art comes from. It is this infinite source that I can tap into, and I suspect it will never run out. And when I go there to write or design or build new worlds, it all comes quite naturally. I feel like a vessel more than anything else. I know it sounds bizarre, but I suspect other people experience creating in this same way. Maybe they go there too, we just haven’t encountered each other yet.

MVA: Go to font?

MV: GENERIC — it’s my dream font. I use it for everything.

MVA: Little treat of choice?

MV: Spam Musubi

MVA: Song/album/singer you’re into right now?

MV: Masayoshi Takanaka

Fantasy Camp™

Fantasy is so camp ✧ Sci-fi & fantasy in flash fiction, design, and pop culture.

By Madeleine Voge

That’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed Things Worth Noticing! See you next time for a Normal™ edition of Staring at the Ceiling. If you’d like to be featured in the next guest edit, please reach out :)

In case you missed it:

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Hi there, I am so happy to be back in your inbox after taking a couple weeks off.

Thank you to everyone who donated to The Florence Project. We were able to raise a total of $500. Here’s the receipt:

Now onto the newsletter.

Prompt 007:

Draw an egg 10 different ways.

Set a timer for 30 minutes.

Sometimes you just need to draw a few eggs.

🗞️ A collection of fruit stickers by Roxane Gataud

I love a designer with a random little hobby. Roxane Gataud is a French typeface designer who collects fruit stickers, also known as legufrulabelophilia. Such a charming way to find great design inspiration in the small things.

🗄️ How designers describe themselves by David Wise

A collection of designer bios. Really helpful if you’re working on your portfolio and need a jumping off point for your about page.

🛠️ 70+ tools for folks who like to draw by

From pens to tripods to scanners and cloud storage, this guide is a thoughtfully in-depth kit for all your drawing needs.

🗄️ For my texture heads by Karim Dulatov

It seems that designers fall into two camps: those who use textures in their work and those who do not. I do not, but I keep textures saved in case I ever have a change of heart. These are some good ones for free.

🔤 Vibes-based Google fonts by Smith & Diction

Display fonts, fancy fonts, tech fonts, serif fonts.

🔤 Free typefaces by Collletttivo

An open source font catalog.

💿 Color disruptions by Vanzyst

A collection of 96 abstract abstract bitmap vector graphics. Beautifully pixelated.

📖 The Look of the Book by Peter Mendelsund and David J. Alworth

A great coffee table book on book cover design, what it says, and why it matters.

Some more things worth noticing:

📹 The Candy Factory by Cory Jacobs and Jason Schmidt

A short documentary of a tight-knit artist community held together by their landlord/fairy godmother that feels like a glimpse into bygone era. I recommend scrolling through the sweet comments after you watch.

🗞️🎾 A history of tennis style: men’s and women’s via Rake Magazine and Allure

A little overview of tennis uniforms through the years. In the stands and on the grounds at the US Open, I noticed a lot of spectators in tennis whites this year…I’d just like to remind everyone that you’re allowed to dress fun for this one…

🌀 Wind map by HINT.FM

A visualization of wind in the US.

🗞️ Sara Hagle on her practice and not thinking about authenticity via Colossal

A lovely interview with an artist I admire. She talks process, depicting present feelings in her work, and the distractions of following other artists on social media.

“There was a time, especially in school and when working as a graphic designer, when I was very diligent about exploring a variety of work. This was usually via Pinterest. It can be really inspiring, but sometimes it made me feel like everything had been done, which to an extent is very true, but not the best thing to be thinking about when you’re trying to express yourself.”

🖼️ Teenagers in their bedrooms in the 1990s via Flashbak

A collection from Adrienne Salinger’s new edition of Teenagers in Their Bedrooms. Let it fill you with nostalgia for a simpler, angstier time.

“Bedrooms contain the past, the present and the future; they are sites of continual transformation. Popular culture and fashion continually change and recycle. While specific objects of decor change over time, teenagers' bedrooms are still private sanctuaries: spaces for safely experimenting during a time in life when one is forming and expressing ever-evolving identities.”

🗞️ Iona Judd’s buttoned up bodice via Vogue

Here at Staring at the Ceiling, we <3 buttons and I was immediately enchanted by Iona Judd’s wedding bodice. Ellie Misner embroidered hundreds of the bride’s family’s collection of mother-of-pearl buttons onto the bodice to create one of the most beautifully unique wedding dresses I’ve ever seen. The Button King would be proud.

🖼️ Erasure notebooks via The Paris Review

Mixed media poetry by Mary Ruefle.

“Ruefle, who is based in Vermont, has been making erasures, which she illustrates with collages, almost daily since 1998. Usually working on two pages a day, she has completed more than one hundred and twenty-five erasures to date, a selection of which are now on view through September 6 at Poets House in Downtown Manhattan.”

🎶 My seasonal playlist

I’ll send you off with some tunes.

In case you missed it:

I’LL SEE YOU AROUND / EVERY CORNER HAS ITS FAVORITE CLOWN

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

I’m in Arizona spending time with family, slowing down. Being so close to the border, I have found myself thinking about ICE arrests escalating to upsetting degrees across the country, making it harder and harder to take in. Immigrant detention centers have existed across administrations, but what’s happening right now is increasingly horrifying and it’s hard not to feel powerless in the face of something so bleak.

I want to share a way to help by raising funds for the Florence Project, an Arizona-based nonprofit that supports detainees with legal representation, family reunification, and help transitioning out of detention. My employer is currently matching donations 100%, so you can send me your contributions via Paypal, and I will post the receipt in the following newsletter.

Take me to the donation page

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Prompt 006:

Create a dingbat typeface, with one symbol for each letter of the alphabet.

Set a timer for 30 minutes.

I imported them into Illustrator to clean them up but I ended up liking the sketchy style.1

🎶 Soundtrack for today

This album was recorded on a boom box on top of the artist’s piano, which gives it a warm intimate feeling. You can even hear birds chirping. Listen while you read.

🗞️ The art of dailiness by Michael Bierut

A reflection on the designer’s 100 Day Project and daily practices. He started sketching every day in the aftermath of 9/11 as a way to create grounding structure through a creative outlet. I’ve never really had a daily creative practice—and writing this newsletter might be the closest I’ve come to having one—so I have a voyeuristic fascination with how other people build and sustain theirs.

I recently went to a book event for August Thompson’s novel Anyone’s Ghost, where he and The National’s Matt Berninger spoke at length about their disparate writing processes. Thompson’s was methodical and regulated; Berninger’s slow and meandering. Both worked. It got me thinking a lot about discipline, consistency, and patience in navigating the blurry parts of creative work.

“In time, I came to see that there was a sweet spot between specificity and open-endedness. There needed to be some constraints, but it was also important that they could make a choice, however small. But even when people hemmed themselves in, even when they came to me on day 22 and said they never wanted to do their particular creative act again, I’d say, ‘Make your resistance the thing. See how that works.’”

🛠️ GridType tool

An experimental type tool where you can generate different types of grids, draw letters, and download them as a font file.

🖍️ Jupi’s brand work by How&How

Jupi is a “decision operating system” that uses AI to optimize decision making for growing startup and it is the first AI company I’ve seen with a logo that doesn’t fall into magic spark territory.

In an early edition of Staring at the Ceiling, I noticed a typography trend I called Construction Paper Sans: bespoke, child-like paper cutout typography, playful color and texture combinations, usually only seen in the food industry. Now, with AI flattening content into sameness, there’s been a noticeable push to highlight a tangible human touch in AI powered products and their branding. See here: the surrealist illustrations by Daniel Liévano, the whimsical paper cutout logo, the cutie pie name. I think we’ll keep seeing more of this as a way to build trust in audiences in an increasingly automated landscape. As skeptical as I am about what this company probably does, I found the brand work beautiful and captivating.

🗄️ Atipo illustrations

Speaking of, this is a catalog of illustrations with a variety of styles and settings. Pay what you want for individual assets or whole packs.

🗞️ On artists and hopelessness by Beth Pickens

A short piece of literature that includes tender advice and practices to foster positivity and gratitude. I think cultivating hope is a lifelong endeavor that involves community, spirituality, family, art, and a myriad of other factors, but I appreciated that this guide included kind words and actionable daily exercises.

“You and your Self are going to be together for a long, long time. You will have a relationship with you for the rest of your life so why not make it a better one? By working on yourself and growing, changing, or otherwise improving your relationship to yourself, you can build the foundation to have a life with more joy and serenity.”

📖 Origen México by Claudia Espinoza García, designed by Blok Design

An encyclopedic collection of cultural reference points for Mexico, layered with love for a full and rich culture. Topics include Luis Barragán, cochinita pibil, el Chavo del ocho, and dahlias, among many others. It sits in my living room and I leaf through it when I want to look at beautiful things.

Some more things worth noticing:

🖼️ Photographs of roadside America by John Margolies

Scroll through the Library of Congress’ collection of John Margolies’ photos of quintessentially American commercial structures from 1969–2008.

“Vernacular roadside and commercial structures spread with the boom of suburbanization and the expansion of paved roads across the United States in the prosperous decades after World War II…In his view, ephemeral and vernacular architecture better told the story of 20th-century America and, just as frequently, expressed the eccentricity and ingenuity of its makers. New building materials and techniques allowed for whimsical design elements that served no structural purpose. Decoration was prominent, but usually coarsely constructed as it was meant to be comprehensible from a distance.”

🗞️ Pearl Jones’ $12k renovated Brooklyn kitchen via Architectural Digest

I’ve been following food stylist Pearl Jones’ brutalist inspired kitchen reno over on Instagram for a while now and I loooooved the final result. On a budget too!

🗞️ An interview with Depths of Wikipedia, via Asterisk

A fascinating look into the Wikipedia editor community.

“As to what makes people get sucked in? I think that one shared quality of every single person I've met who has stuck around Wikipedia for a long time is that they have very little hesitation to work hard, and they put a low value on their own time. Maybe they are even willing to waste time. Like, people are very willing to raise concerns and discuss and accept critiques. I also think people tend to care a lot about precise language and about being correct. Some of that comes from the culture of Wikipedia, but I think it's also what predisposes them to edit it in the first place.”

🖼️ The most beautiful gardens via T Magazine

Sending you off with a grounding reminder to touch grass.

In case you missed it:

Thank you for reading.

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

Happiest of Mondays, my friends. Hope you had a great weekend. I have so many things to share with you today.

Some housekeeping:

I put together a quick reader survey and would love to hear your thoughts. It takes less than 2 minutes and your answers will help me make Staring at the Ceiling even better. It will also make me eternally grateful. Click the button below to dive in.

Take me to the survey

🖍️ NYC FC brand work by Gretel

If you live in NYC, maybe you saw the 700-pound, five-story high inflatable pigeon overlooking the Hudson River. It was a part of a hackneyed but fun brand activation for the NYC’s MLS team which has recently undergone a transformation ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

This was a huge rebrand with design elements executed pristinely. The typography is inspired by pre-modernist subway tile signage, refined and expanded upon. The icon system is clean and interesting. I thought they did a great job marrying the classic and modern, and capturing the energy of the city and its fandom.

Here’s what my soccer-player/fan/brand strategist fiancé James had to say about the work:

The identity's energy, five borough references, and mosaic elements look cool and will look even cooler in the fancy new stadium coming in 2027. However, NYCFC is owned by a global soccer conglomerate which has essentially gentrified the spirit of soccer and cheated its way to the top of the Premier League, so claiming local credibility is a bit of a tough sell for me.

Putting my brand strategist hat on, I wish they had a brief that was more about what NYCFC can say that other MLS cities can't: America's only truly global city + global sport + global club = NYCFC. They almost got there with their spec billboard that has soccer written in different languages. More of that, less bodega cats and chopped cheese.

🗄️ Dead Simple Sites by Arcade Labs

A gallery of beautifully designed minimal websites. Perfect for portfolios imo.

🛠️ Studio Morflax

A great mockup tool with a huge library of surfaces, including apparel, devices, and some abstract 3D shapes and icons. It also has animation and expansive customization features for lighting, background colors, rotations, etc. with great templates available.

🔤 Good Glyphs by Violet Office

A dingbat font created by a group of designers, with each one creating a symbol for one letter. This is such a fun idea, I might just steal it for a future prompt.

📖 Graphic Fest 2 by Victionary

Graphic Fest 2 is the second edition of Victionary’s collection of brand identities for events and fairs. It has a wide breadth of work, highlighting individual designers and their work for Netflix, the New York Times, and Paris Electronic Week. I always say this…but this is a favorite of mine that I reference often!

Some more things worth noticing:

🛠️ TinEye reverse image search

A reverse image search engine that’s better than Google because it can find sources and moderated versions of images. I use it all the time to source visuals for the newsletter.

🖼️ dressing up as birds

Excellent use of creative energy.

🌀Space elevator by Neal Agarwal

A fun experience where you get to scroll from Earth all the way up to outer space. Did you know that there’s a point in the stratosphere where your tears and saliva will boil?

🎬 In the Deep End: Swimming Pools On-Screen by The Criterion Channel

A collection of movies featuring memorable swimming pools. Films include The Graduate (1967), La Piscine (1970), and Wild Things (1998). So far this month, I’ve watched 3 Women (1977) and A Bigger Splash (1973)—one is a Robert Altman directed dreamlike sequence following three women in southern California and the other is a documentary exploring David Hockney’s lingering breakup. I loved both!

“Those uncanny, aqueous environs where interior collides with exterior, the private flirts with the public, and time seems suspended above the watermark.”

🛒 Vintage wrought iron bowl

For your fruit or your soaps or your mail or your keys.

🎥 The latest season of Taskmaster (Series 19)

Taskmaster is a delightfully chaotic British comedy panel show. This last series was a hoot, but if you’ve never seen it before, I recommend series 4 as a starter.

🖼️ Wimbledon posters through the years

I <3 tennis season. Take a look at these very cool posters dating back to 1893.

🎶 My song of the summer for the past five summers

There may not be a song of the summer but this is mine.

In case you missed it:

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See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.

hey!!!! hope you’re having a gr8 summer. I am currently visiting friends in Chicago.

Last month, I got to go to my first Substack Bestsellers party and met a lot of cool and smart writers. Getting invited to a ~writer event~ on a Brooklyn rooftop garden was surreal and I left feeling grateful. I also came out of it with a bunch of people’s numbers and a recreational basketball league. New York City!!!!

Check out , , , , , and .

Some housekeeping:

I put together a quick reader survey and would love to hear your thoughts. It takes less than 5 minutes and your answers will help me make Staring at the Ceiling even better. It will also make me eternally grateful. Just click the button below to dive in.

Take the survey

Prompt 005:

Create a movie title card based on yourself. It could be inspired by your name, your newsletter, a favorite song or movie—anything that feels like you.

Set a timer for 20 minutes.

I created one for this newsletter and was enjoying myself so I made a few more. :)

🔤 Soft Type by Sarah Cadigan-Fried

Soft Type is a collection of typefaces designed for knitting color-work, with “charted” and “uncharted” versions for each font. The typeface follows the same principles as pixel type and includes different sizing so you can choose the right scale to fit your project size. Very helpful, very cool.

🛠️ Shortcuts dot design by Michel van Heest

Shortcuts for everything. Illustrator, Figma, AfterEffects, Miro, Wordpress, Google Chrome, Notion, Slack. Can you even believe it?

🗄️ Typographic Posters dot com slash archive by André Felipe

An expansive and thoughtful collection of 11k typographic posters from 40+ countries. This is a new favorite for inspiration.

🛠️ A guide to working with clients by HAWRAF (RIP)1

Anyone who works with clients (in a creative industry or not) should read this guide. It’s honest and practical and includes so much helpful information everyone should think about before and while taking on clients. It includes tips on pricing, cost of working, cost of living, screening clients, and scripts for what you should say in each scenario.

“Working with clients is hard, but—like any healthy relationship—it starts with a strong sense of self worth and confidence. Understand your value. That knowledge is power, so calculate it, know it, and communicate it.”

📖 Hands on research for artists, designers & educators by Miriam Rasch, Jojanneke Gijsen, Harma Staal

Design research is something I’ll admit I’m not deeply trained in, but I’m eager to learn more, especially now that I’m working more closely with web designers at my job.

Developed by the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam, this is a comprehensive guide for getting started in researching for projects and includes practical help, tools, and case studies. I also found it broad enough that it can be applied to lots of disciplines beyond art and design. A great text to have for reference!

Some more things worth noticing:

🗞️ This review of Adrien Brody’s art via ArtNews

There’s already enough haters on the internet but sometimes you need to be real and dissect Adrien Brody’s pixelated Marylin Monroe2 collage art.

“If you look closely, you’ll notice that many of Brody’s prints are pixelated and low-quality. They appear to have been shoddily printed from the internet, not appropriated from his surroundings. Thematically, Brody’s works aren’t much better. The pictures of cartoon characters are about as subtle as a sledgehammer, making no attempt to add any nuance to his commentary on the American zest for carnage. One glib painting features a gleeful Scrooge McDuck toting an automatic weapon beside two speared people and a skull. For some reason, Brody has included a printed biography for Josef Ptacek, a Czech model, amid a painted brick wall with the word ‘NYC’ on it.”

🛒 The Khaite River mules at TheRealReal in Soho

I went to TheRealReal irl with my mom in June and seriously contemplated getting these. They were beautiful and comfy and in perfect condition. But I am responsible and didn’t get them because I am on wedding budget mode.

🗞️ On Chat-GPT weakening our brains by

A thoughtful take on the recent MIT study showing that heavy reliance on ChatGPT may lead to a decline in cognitive performance. With generative AI tools still in their infancy, I think it’s important to approach them prudently and use them thoughtfully, if at all. Using AI for everything feels unwise, but so does being anti-AI (even saying anti-AI sounds feels like being anti-internet or anti-book).3 And if you have written off AI altogether, respect to you, etc.

I especially liked the author’s metaphor comparing our relationship to technology and content to our diets and physical activity. Writing and thinking are cognitive muscles, and like any muscle, they weaken when over-relied on or outsourced too often.

“But a big part of the reason to write is because it is difficult. Writing well is a proxy for thinking well. Using AI to write for you is like going to the gym, but instead of lifting the weights yourself, you bring an apparatus to do the work. You may lift plenty of weight this way, but you yourself aren’t getting stronger. Over time, your muscles will atrophy. Perhaps you become great at configuring and programming the apparatus, but that is a very different skill than a squat or deadlift.”

🛒 Ant eater egg holder by Mano de Tierra

I think I need to add this to my wedding registry?

🌀 30 minutes with a stranger by The Pudding

A social experiment where strangers talk for half an hour. A sweet case for building social trust in a time when it has been eroded.

🎶 Barracuda by John Cale

I heard this song on the season 1 finale of Poker Face and haven’t stopped listening to it since. This album is A+.

Stay cool out there ☀️ Don’t forget to take the survey!

See you next time. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox on the first and third Monday of the month.

If you’d like to support the newsletter, you can buy me a coffee.