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Support!2025
A logo is a visual element that has to work both on a creative level and a technical one. I am of the opinion that once you learn about the technical part, the creative should be much easier to do.
From contemporary typefaces all the way back to Greek temples, nothing truly beautiful was ever perfectly measured. This essay reveals why that is and why you should care.
I am absolutely convinced that the thing we call artificial intelligence today can never in a million years reach human-level intelligence. Not if it is based on the machine learning technologies we use right now. In this piece, I will try to argue why I think that.
I almost got run over by one of Zurich’s new trams a few weeks back, and the reason is bad industrial design.
2024
Why expiry dates on your food products can turn your kitchen into a place of frustration, and how a tiny shift in design could change that completely.
Poor font choices sabotage legibility and thus user experience. Learn what makes a typeface truly legible and why it matters.
In Praise of Buttons – Part Two
Wherever tumble dryers, cooktops, or any other appliances, the shift from physical knobs and buttons to touch controls has been an absolute usability disaster. This essay examines how this trend led to slower, less reliable, and needlessly complicated products.
In Praise of Buttons – Part One
A button that doesn’t look like a button fails before it’s even pressed. On why good interface design needs to mimic physical reality, no matter what any trend says.
2023
Parochialism, Language and Usability
This piece lays out how language, geography, and clueless assumptions quietly break usability. Because when products are designed inside a cultural bubble, users elsewhere usually pay the price.
2020
When undercooked products meet overpriced accessories, something’s gone deeply wrong. A furious critique of Apple, its fanbase, and the influencers who cheer it on.
2019
Evangelists praise the iPad with religious zeal, yet nobody seems to use it for getting any kind of serious work done. What does that say about its real-world value?
What looks like a small mistake in the humble “do you want to save?” prompt reveals a broader loss of design literacy.
2018
Honest observations may sting, but they’re the only path to progress.
This case study walks through the steps of bringing a company’s static corporate design visuals into the world of video and motion graphics.
