We are quickly approaching the home stretch of 2025. Personally, it’s been a roller coaster, and not in a good way. I hope your year is more on track. The link machine keeps churning.
Web Design/UX/UI
A Periodic Table of System Design Principles
This paper proposes a preliminary taxonomy of system design principles distilled from several domains in computer systems. The goal is a shared, concise vocabulary that helps students, researchers, and practitioners reason about structure and trade-offs, compare designs across domains, and communicate choices more clearly.
Unstructured Input in AI Apps Instead of Web Forms
Web forms exist to put information from people into databases. The input fields and formatting rules in online forms are there to make sure the information fits the structure a database needs. But unstructured input in AI-enabled applications means machines, instead of humans, can do this work.
Art
Maud Madsen’s Oil Paintings Explore Childhood Memories, Daydreams, and Nesting
Her current solo exhibition, Dweller at Half Gallery, taps into the vast realm of memory as she depicts herself building structures in the snow or pillow forts from couch cushions—activities we often associate with kids’ unbridled creativity and ingenuity.
Antti Laitinen
Visual Artist
Industrial Design
Nendo’s Helically-Mated Pair of Chopsticks
For four centuries, the town of Obama in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, has manufactured lacquered chopsticks. Obama’s lacquered chopsticks have been recognised as the hardest and most beautiful of Japanese lacquer chopsticks since the seventeenth century, when they became known as Wakasa-nuri. We designed these chopsticks in collaboration with Hashikura Matsukan, a manufacturer who continue Obama’s traditional manufacturing techniques today.
Work
How to build a resilient design team
In an environment that demands speed and agility, how do you build a team that’s resilient to change, no matter what’s around the corner?
Smith & Diction
We caught up with Philadelphia-based studio Smith & Diction to talk about staying honest in their design process, their quirky type tests, and why they think it’s more important to serve a bigger idea than to stick to a specific aesthetic.
Graphic Design/Packaging
Mohawk Mosaic
A new range of papers with fresh colors and distinctive textures inspired by nature and the world we live in. As always, Mohawk’s team of paper makers set out to create a paper grade line that offered innovation, promoted craftsmanship, and embraced endless creative possibilities.
Books
50 Indie Games that Changed the World
Exploring the inception, development, and legacy of some of the most important titles of the digital download era, 50 Indie Games That Changed the World is the ultimate celebration of what it takes to get a video game made outside of the typical AAA studio system.
Random
A Good Movie To Watch
Discover what’s good on your streaming services.
The Amazing Art of the Video Game Marquee
I became captivated not by the games themselves but by the incredible art on the cabinets and specifically the marquee, the sign set above the screen, tempting a kid from 1983 to spend their hard-earned quarters.