A designer who writes.
I have blogged intermittently since the mid 90s. Thankfully, much of the early teenage angst is lost to time. This collects my writings from this site, an earlier personal website, and some newsletter projects over the years, in mostly chronological order. I also publish new writing here. I publish somewhat more formal writing about content strategy and design careers at Content Career Accelerator.
Just back from Interaction 19, a big design conference held in Seattle this year. I gave my How to Get the Writing Done talk on Thursday in the Cinerama, a lovely theatre space with an intimidatingly-large screen. I almost didn’t go. Thought about canceling when Mom died in December. I didn’t know what kind of … continue
Do you ever have that thing where you hear or say a word while you’re typing and you accidentally type that exact word? That happened to me on Facebook the other day. Can’t remember what I was trying to search for but I heard the word “photos” and typed that in instead. The suggestions for … continue
If you’re not using Reddit, I mean, don’t, probably? Read books or something. But if you’re going to use it, here are my recommendations for seven good subreddits.
Gratitude journals seem to work wonders for folks. It’s not quite my bag but I am always trying to notice, to at least tell myself in the moment: this is good. Today? Now? My day is off to a good little start, and I am grateful. It’s above zero and the sun is shining, which … continue
Brian, one of the organizers of the open mic I attend now, issued a songwriting challenge last week. The input/theme was “stand up”. I started scratching out lyrics in Drafts on my iPad right away that same night, and finished them up on Saturday afternoon. Jon, my music partner, came over Sunday and we hashed … continue
I’ve never really dug into the B-52s catalog, despite having done Love Shack at karaoke at least a dozen times now. I love how unapologetically weird they are. I’ve got Whammy! on vinyl, but this isn’t on it: The songs where only Cindy sings don’t seem to get as much airtime, which is too bad … continue
A local urbanism blog is encouraging the sharing of sidewalk-shaming photos (good!) and it occurred to me that not everyone knows you can take a photo from an iPhone without ever using the touchscreen. Just say “Hey Siri, open the camera!” if you have “Hey Siri” enabled. Otherwise, press and hold the home button or … continue
Extended focus is … not in my strengths column, let’s say. Here are seven of the more common excuses I’ve used to stop writing when I really really really should have still been writing: *** Originally published as List No. 59 of the 7×77 newsletter project.
My 2019 obsession is film photography. I’ve got a lot to learn yet, but I am really enjoying it. It really checks a lot of boxes for me: lovely little mechanical things that make pleasant sounds, small consumables you can collect and stack up like ammo, technical skills to master, and plenty of YouTube rabbit … continue
Catching up on the Road Work podcast. I like the ones where John talks about relationships. This segment starting at 46:44 resonated with me, for better or worse: Other people are doing life, and the mailman comes at a certain time of day, and dinner is at dinner time. And I’m bouncing along, careening in … continue
Or you will, if you subscribe. Personal dispatches from the desk of Scott Kubie, a designer who writes.