Notes from the studio.
Long-form essays on how we work, what we learn, and the engagements we choose to write up publicly. Filed when there is something to file. No newsletter, no pop-up, no analytics.
Two directions, not three variations
Why presenting three variations of the same design direction is almost always a tell that the thinking is not done yet — and how we structure two genuinely distinct paths instead.
On the boring half
Empty states, error states, edge cases, the small print, the page that nobody clicks. The boring half is where most projects fail and where we deliberately spend half our time.
Why we write everything down
Decisions, tradeoffs, post-mortems, the conversation we had in the kitchen at 4pm on a Thursday. If it is not written down, it did not happen, and the next person to ask will be told a different version.
The handover document
On the document we deliver at the end of every engagement — what it contains, why it takes a week to write, and why it is the most expensive single artefact the studio produces.