Technology is commanding our attention in infinite, insurmountable loops. A country trip off-grid helped me escape. There are a thousand beautiful ways to start the day that don’t begin with looking a
A page from the Zibaldone da Venice , a 14th-century hodgepodge. (Image: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library ) One day in Venice, sometime near the end of the 14th century, a busy merchant found
Eric Draper/George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum Journalist Garrett M. Graff ( @vermontgmg ) is the author of The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 , and a former editor of POLI
Introducing Interpolate Published in Swift and iOS Writing · 2 min read · May 3, 2016 -- In a recent (excellent) talk at try! Swift, Adam Bell argued that we should bring back the magic iOS apps lost
In a world where flying iron men and shield-wielding captains engage in Civil War, Black Panther is most concerned with his people in Wakanda: a fictional East African nation with the most advanced te
I saw what Foos was doing, and I did the same: I got down on my knees and crawled toward the lighted louvres. Then I stretched my neck in order to see as much as I could through the vent, nearly butti
Welcome to the world’s most isolated civilization 37 min read · Nov 1, 2015 -- In September 2015, I traveled to North Korea to see, first-hand, what life was like inside the Hermit Kingdom. Much of th
Published in Figma Design · 5 min read · Feb 9, 2016 -- Before I co-founded Figma my background was in game development, not in design. I remember being very surprised when I first encountered modern
Video marketing Power your marketing strategy with perfectly branded videos to drive better ROI. Event marketing Host virtual events and webinars to increase engagement and generate leads. Employee co
A few weeks ago Adobe released the first public preview of what the company is now calling Adobe XD , its major new UX/UI design and prototyping tool—you can download it here . This early version is m
I’m a tech entrepreneur and writer trying to make the technology world more thoughtful, creative and humane. You can read more about me here.
This is a blog about how culture is made, continuously updated since 1999. While you’re here, check out my writing about tech, Prince, or the Best Of the…
If you work for yourself, you don’t have the luxury of being passive when it comes to things like community, finances, and work/life boundaries. These things are not taken care of for you by someone e
When I read Melissa Dahl’s piece for New York Magazine a few days ago, I had a strong sense of recognition. Not only do I often feel the same way as she does but, in over a decade of working as a Tech
I touched on this in my conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, but I'm a climate pessimist. I don't believe the United States — or the world — will do nearly enough, nearly fast enough, to hold the rise
Released today on the App Store, Launch Center Pro 2.3 is a major update to Contrast’s app launcher and automation tool for iOS that further enhances integration with online services, improves how act
Here is a dorky chart showing what I call The “Spectrum of ‘GTD workflow’ Tools”: Click for full-size What does it mean? Basic task-management tools shine with short term tasks and goals. They are simple and have no learning curve. However, they can strain under the weight of too many tasks,…
Whether you currently label yourself a photographer, a blogger, a podcaster, a writer or even an occasional Twitterer, we’re all publishers now. I believe “publisher” is a much healthier lens to adopt for looking at our work. It forces us to focus on the end product (the image, the book, the tweet)…
I’ve been using OmniFocus as my primary tool for task management for years, yet I never read the GTD book. How I chose OmniFocus is a topic for another day, how I use it my way is the topic for today. Maybe some of the alternative ways I use it can improve the way you do too. My World I’m a software…
(A Shipping Product; Not A Mockup) Let’s get this straight: UI-wise, Wikipedia teleports its audience into the year 2004. Not surprisingly, there has been vibrant discussion recently as to how Wikipedia could be updated to feel contemporary. We’ve seen a few good (and even more mediocre) design…
I find questions about writers’ tools both fascinating and repulsive: fascinating because learning about the habits and techniques of people whose work you admire is endlessly interesting, and occasionally even imparts useful knowledge. (If John McPhee swears by index cards as a method for…
Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about Coda and Sandboxing. It detailed a thorough list of changes we’d be making to Coda to work under Apple’s Sandboxing restrictions. Click here to read it if you haven’t. As we continued to work on Coda 2.5—a significant update that we’re really excited…
Having fun is an excellent way to do our best creative work. But as anyone who writes or draws or takes pictures for a living will tell you, thinking and creating something awesome every day can be excruciatingly painful. Doing our best creative work day in and day out is difficult. Creative work…
Famous authors are notorious for their daily routines — sometimes outrageous, usually obsessive, invariably peculiar. In Odd Type Writers: From Joyce and Dickens to Wharton and Welty, the Obsessive Habits and Quirky Techniques of Great Authors ( public library ) — the more dimensional and thoroughly…
Being an early adopter is exhilarating in the same way that riding a rollercoaster can feel like travel. You’re moving, but you’re not actually going anywhere, only devising ever-increasingly complex methods to make yourself feel slightly more barfy. You are in a loop de loop of productivity,…
Note: This was written about a previous design of this site. If some parts do not make sense, that’s why. But, I promise, this site is still very self-indulgent. Making things for other people is tough. Anyone who’s done a client job knows that. Making things for yourself is also rough, but in a…
Typography is a practice. Whether you’re a novice or an expert in any medium, good decisions take practice — and great ones stand on a solid foundation. Typekit Practice is a collection of resources and a place to try things, hone your skills, and stay sharp. Everyone can practice typography. Try…
Adam Savage talks about the importance of the relationship between art and science for his keynote at this year's SXSW Interactive Conference. What can scientists learn from artists (and vice versa)? How can technologists be better storytellers? Adam discusses these topics and more and then sits…
Crafting link underlines on Medium How hard could it be to draw a horizontal line on the screen? It seems wrangling a few pixels together to stand in a file would be something computers should be pretty good at anno domini twenty-fourteen. One would think so, but simple things are rarely simple…
Archive Colophon Contact Twitter RSS Feed I came across the Midori Traveler's Notebook while researching ways to carry around multiple Field Notes books. I know I've seen the Midori notebook on countless occasions during other web surfing sessions, but I never paid attention to the Midori…
Tweetbot 3 for iPhone Tweetbot is, by far, the iPhone app that I use the most on a daily basis. It’s not just that I keep Twitter open essentially all day to check for news, talk to friends, or post GIFs: since I got the first beta of the original Tweetbot three years ago , the app has become so…
Long have I been a fan of Mark Jardine’s heavy-handed design aesthetic. The dark grey industrial materials, the gradients, noise textures, and the playful graphics and icons. These design elements have been inextricably tied to the signature and brand of the Tapbots app lineup. Today, that all…
Launch Center Pro , developed by Contrast (née App Cubby), can be considered the app that spearheaded a small revolution among iOS power users. Initially envisioned as a Notification Center tool, following an Apple rejection in late 2011 the app was released as Launch Center; in the summer of 2012,…
ballmer exit speech 1020 Outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has always been a speaker and performer like no other — his absolute enthusiasm for his company is electric in person, turning ordinary corporate events into raw displays of emotion that are often criticized but never forgotten. That…
The free makes life a lot easier and keeps your OmniFocus world, well, in sync. If you use your own WebDAV server you have the same capabilities but without the awesome "" feature which allows you to email in your actions. While the OmniSync Server is fairly reliable, it is not necessarily the…
Chase McCoy