Here we go again. Out with the old, in with the new. I’m currently hard at work on several fronts—nothing new there. Between these weekly posts, the Skate Book Club newsletter, my magazine (Tails Of…), and the full-time job, my plate is full.
In my personal life, however, I’m trying to do the opposite: simplify. 2025 pushed me hard toward a “paring down” mission, and I’ve been shedding books, clothes, and electronics to find my essentials. But here’s the creative’s catch-22: the things I “need” are the things I use to make more things. I’m still working on the solution for that one. Happy New Year!
Architecture
Rechtswissenschaftliche Bibliothek Zürich
The library of the Law Faculty of the University of Zurich comprises around 200K books and 700 journals and 500 workplaces. It is housed in the inner courtyard of a building from 1908, designed by Hermann Fiertz. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the new building opened in 2004 and has a 30m high atrium. Six lens-shaped galleries offer research spaces.
ATLANTICA T.O.W.
Atlantica is a fully customized tiny house designed in collaboration with its owner. Completed in 2023 and set in a pine forest, this off-grid retreat is designed for a family of four. A large covered porch extends the living space outdoors, making Atlantica a perfect nature retreat, ideal for extended stays in any season.
Industrial Design
Erwan Bouroullec disguises Samsung speaker as an abstract sculpture
For the speaker’s gently rounded body, rendered entirely in either black or white, the designer looked to vinyl records, subwoofers and music notes in a bid to capture the essential shape of sound itself.
Marc Newson and Ressence Reimagine Time With the TYPE 3 MN Watch
At its core, the TYPE 3 MN showcases Ressence’s proprietary co-planar surface with mechanical display module, the patented Ressence Orbital Convex System (ROCS 3). Beneath a domed sapphire crystal, the dial appears to float within a sealed chamber filled with 4.15 ml of silicone oil – an ingenious solution that cancels light refraction, eliminates glare, and creates a magnified, almost holographic effect.
Graphic Design, Branding, Wayfinding, and Typography
Dalziel & Pow Designs Guinness Wayfinding and Branding in London
Rather than treating wayfinding as a functional afterthought, Dalziel & Pow approached the project as a storytelling system. The guiding idea, Discover the Unexpected, is expressed through a playful, character-driven visual language that feels unmistakably Guinness while responding to the energy of Covent Garden.
Letterforms Are Containers for Ideas in ‘Alphabetical Playground’
A recent frontier in typeface development pushes into exciting new territory: what if we viewed the alphabet as a container for countless graphic design systems, conceptual ideas, and endless play?
font.fish
A browser based tool for exploring thousands of fonts.
LEGO Bricks Transform into Letterforms in the International Design Project ‘A2Z’
Once the designers had created their pieces, they returned digital templates to Neves so that the compositions could be set up using physical bricks and run through a large press in the UIC print lab. The process involved over 8,000 bricks and more than 27,000 hand-operated printing passes that took Neves eight months to complete alongside the project’s producer and publisher, Amira Hegazy, and graduate student assistant Shannon Morrissey.
Web Design
Size of Life
By Neal Agarwal & Illustrations by Julius Csotonyi
You Can’t Opt-Out of Accessibility
Accessibility is so fundamental that this shouldn’t even be a post I feel compelled to write, yet I feel like some fanatical obsessive whenever I have to try convince someone to do something as simple as care about their fellow humans.
Photography
What an unprocessed photo looks like
There’s nothing that happens when you adjust the contrast or white balance in editing software that the camera hasn’t done under the hood. The edited image isn’t “faker” then the original: they are different renditions of the same data.