I love how a team can spend two weeks on a 30-slide strategy deck for the execs, only to have the entire presentation spent discussing the minutia of Slide 2.

Tech execs love saying they’re building the car while it’s speeding down the highway.

In reality, most are making turtle soup…while riding the turtle.

I started my design career just as desktop publishing took off.

Suddenly, designers didn’t need typesetters or color transfers; we could do everything on-screen.

Now, 35 years later, it feels like that era is closing.

Agentic AI is about to do for decision-making what DTP did for production.

Showing prototypes to expert users?

Make the numbers realistic.

When the math doesn’t check out, they’ll focus on that instead of the design.

I struggle when projects are designed to impress decision makers more than help day-to-day users.

Sometimes you can do both.
But too often, the “sizzle” wins—and the real problems stick around.

Before Figma, we had X-actos, wax rollers, and spray mount.
Paste-up wasn’t fast—but it was weirdly joyful.

Lines of type you could touch. Boards and tissue you could hold.

I miss when design was a little more physical—and a lot more fume-y.

HBO is changing its brand name again. Back to HBO Max. At this point it can officially be considered dissociative identity disorder.