Writing
Sent weekly. Pulled straight from Kit, so the archive and the inbox never disagree.
Archive
01Nobody’s looking down on youSomething my grandfather said, weeks after almost losing my grandmother. ~4 min.Oct 31, 202602The Marketing ValleyYou don’t control the hit. You control the at-bats.Oct 30, 202603Can't you just put your pants on?Why AI makes good designers feel like toddlers.Oct 29, 202604RuyaHow a seemingly simple story elevates a brand identity.Oct 28, 202605Beautiful rebrand. Wrong problemIntuit’s new identity is gorgeous. It still can’t make Mailchimp and Credit Karma belong together.Oct 27, 202606Can you imagine Bogues trying to dunk?Your brand is copying the tallest player on the court. Here’s why that loses.Oct 26, 202607The floor of good neighborlinessWhat a pile of excessive Halloween decorations can teach us about being a good neighborOct 24, 202608Your rebrand is already on your Spotify 🤘Seven brand assets hiding in plain sight, and where to find them on an album cover.Oct 23, 202609Everything your hero section needs (and nothing else)Six parts, four real heroes, one checklist to stealOct 22, 202610Which one feels more wise?Three directions for MentorCruise. Their users picked the one nobody else in the category would 🤘Oct 21, 202611I ran the Webflow meetup for five yearsAnd I wouldn’t build a new site on it today.Oct 20, 202612It looked worse. It converted 17% better.Twitter liked our old Senja homepage better. The buyers didn’t.Oct 19, 202613Happiness isn’t a math problemHungry? Eat. Thirsty? Drink. Unhappy? That one doesn’t work the same way.Oct 17, 202614Fire and RainThe opposing ends of poor brand stewardship and how to avoid them bothOct 16, 202615No more blank canvasesSix brand assets your team can pull from every time, and why each one matters.Oct 15, 202616Stop saying you want a website like Stripe’sWhat exactly are you going to take from it? Here’s where to look instead 🤘Oct 14, 202617Your eyes got there firstBranding touches everything. Here’s why the visual part matters most.Oct 13, 202618Would you trust him with $100/mo?A homeless man, a What Not to Wear makeover, and the feeling your brand is already giving off.Oct 12, 202619It’s a good sweatWhy my week looks like a vacation from the outside, and what it took to get hereOct 10, 202620Nobody designs the footerThe last thing people see on your site is the part you put the least effort into.Oct 9, 202621You copied that off the internetWhat a kid who didn’t capitalize his personal pronouns taught me about AI slop.Oct 8, 202622FunnelEnvy ReduxThe branding that helped this agency secure 131% more leads.Oct 7, 202623The spork didn’t kill the forkEverybody says the canvas is dead. I’ve heard that one before 🤘Oct 6, 202624Silver bullets vs. gold BBsThe one perfect campaign teaches you nothing until it’s already over.Oct 5, 202625The Competence ConundrumA hidden curse within being capable, resourceful, and trustworthy.Oct 3, 202626One of my favorite clientsAnd some of my favorite work that has since earned $800k+Oct 2, 202627What are you willing to not be?Why simple, professional, and modern fail as brand attributes and what to do instead.Oct 1, 202628Never the same A twiceHow I turned my handwriting into a design system an agent can runSep 30, 202629The odds aren’t stacked against youA founder at a conference dinner, a $2M product, and the one thing no marketing fix could touchSep 29, 202630Do we fix the brand or the positioning?I used to draw this as a stack. The stack is wrong, and here’s the corrected diagram 🤘Sep 28, 202631The real realA true ranking of the things that matter.Sep 26, 202632Pretty in PetrolIceland's popular gas station and a lesson in color.Sep 25, 202633The Permission EquationThe only thing holding your marketing team back is fearSep 24, 202634New Site DropReviving my portfolio after 3 yearsSep 22, 202635Your brand voice isn’t written. It’s drawn.Six words. Two fonts. One of them is a threat 😎Sep 21, 202636Systems vs. WillpowerI’m not disciplined and I conceded a fight. Still came out the winner.Sep 19, 202637Worse than Yelp reviewers 🤮Put a logo on the internet and people will bash it without failSep 18, 202638Before and After: Logos Pt. 1Making the cherry on top much more alluring.Sep 17, 202639You don’t hate the song“Show us some new directions” is not feedback. Here’s what to say insteadSep 16, 202640Let it be the loud oneOne of them is allowed to use red. The other one isn’t 🤘Sep 15, 202641Six signs your CMO is a problemThe most expensive line item a founder ever misjudges, and the three questions that catch it in an interview.Sep 14, 202642Just, Trust, MustThree kinds of friends, and the odd reason business partners end up in the top tier ahead of people you’ve known for decades.Sep 12, 202643No solutions, only trade-offs: brandingRevolution, evolution, optimization: what each one actually costs you 🤘Sep 11, 202644The part of the page that shouldn’t matchThree things go in a CTA section. The fourth one is contrast, and it’s the one everybody skips.Sep 10, 202645Prisma ReduxThe muse was Ratatat. The brief was “surreal.” Before and after inside.Sep 9, 202646Stop typing your design feedbackHere’s the arithmetic, in under 200 words, to prove a better method.Sep 8, 202647Stealing the wrong halfEverybody’s about to take the wrong lesson from Liquid Death's MasterClass. Two lists to fix it 🤘Sep 7, 202648The one test I can’t runI split-test everything for a living. Here’s the one I’d give anything to run, and history will never let me.Sep 5, 202649I scream, you scream, we all scream at screenshotsThere is a better way to visually showcase your product.Sep 4, 202650Rebrand or just a new website?A framework for answering this questionSep 3, 202651Ur pricing page sux 😋5 tips to make it better.Sep 2, 202652The hearts of robotsStop treating engineering and developer ICPs like Klingons.Sep 1, 202653Brand guides as constitutionsThe cost of treating brand guidelines as law before the brand has entered the real world.Aug 31, 202654What does a "Q" look like?An eighth grader asked a teacher friend of mine that this week. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.Aug 29, 202655Specific, or cohesive. Pick one.Or don't... Because you can have both, as demonstrated by this week's field note.Aug 28, 202656Your headline is too boldEasy design fixes that cost nothing and help you wield words like never before.Aug 27, 202657Preparing for the floodThe story of how we helped KinectAir get ten times more signups in one weekend than they had in one year.Aug 26, 202658In my node-based editor eraThree specific reasons a node canvas beats Photoshop and every stock library at once 🤘Aug 25, 202659Stop asking whether they like itName the feeling. Run the comparison. That’s an objective measurement of your brand.Aug 24, 202660I'm sorry, however...A client apologized and then billed me for it. On apologies with a toll attached.Aug 22, 202661It has to look like it soundsFive album covers, why each one matches its music exactly, and the one that made me a designer.Aug 21, 202662Twelve years later, they still using the logo everyone hatedAn autopsy of one of the most heated rebrands to ever break the internet... 12 years after the flamesAug 20, 202663I don’t play the instruments anymoreThe tools helping me become a powerful orchestrator of design.Aug 19, 202664Look, Ma! I made thisHere's a set of website before and afters ranging from complete overhauls to subtle optimizations. Enjoy!Aug 18, 202665The Right Way to Steal a BrandCopying Stripe = bad, Calligraphy class and death metal water = good.Aug 17, 202666I don't want to be in the box anymoreFive-sixths of this is still design. Here's what the other sixth is for.Aug 15, 202667Lorem Ipsum is a lieWhy the designer in the room should be the loudest voice for writing at first.Aug 8, 202668Join It ReduxA bike wheel, a warmer logo, and a concept that never saw daylight.Aug 1, 202669The most expensive way to save $25,000What building your own site with AI really costs, and what nobody puts on the invoice.Jul 25, 202670A transfer of creative ownershipWhen you make something that isn't yours, more yours than theirs.Jul 18, 202671Three years. Seven things I actually believe.From nothing you get nothing. Great brands are stolen. Guidelines are just hypotheses. And four more.Jul 11, 202672America doesn't need a new logo 🇺🇸Jul 4, 202673Buying a Website is Like Buying a HousePage count tells you almost nothing about what you're actually buying.Jun 27, 202674Where Have I Been?The honest version — about three years overdue.Jun 20, 2026