Mind grapes and tiny pictures
Self-promotion of my day job may have waned, but I’m still out here designing rad icons! In case you’ve been living under a sadly icon-less rock, we’ve been pushing out brand new Icon Packs regularly ever since we launched Font Awesome v7 last year. What is an Icon Pack? It’s like a aesthetically-distinct amuse bouche that covers folks’ 200+ most-used icons. I’ve had the pleasure of designing…
🌐 Propellant by Ethan Marcotte As it turns out, that “growth at any cost” mindset does have an incredibly high cost. Because what all this corporate flexibility means is that — in addition to all their other many failings — these “AI” platforms are machines of war and death. Anyone infuriated by the military-industrial complex should stop supporting them. I haven’t gotten this piece out of my…
Happy Boxing Day! I sincerely hope you yours had/are having/will have been going to have a loving and restful holiday time. Personally I’ve been eating lots of treats, hesitantly making my through Signalis on my Switch, and hearing my kiddo’s new KPop Demon Hunters Yoto card on repeat. In general, this week has been very “consume-y” for me — in that I’m not producing anything and instead just…
The family trips kept rollin’ last month with a lovely scoot to the Windy City. I’m too tired to write much of a play-by-play of our journey, so you’ll just have to settle for pics 😅 Hopefully I’ll be able to visit again in June now that the date and venue for KeyCon 2026 has been announced . It’s such a damn good city! 📸 All photos taken on a Fujifilm X-T5 Downtown Em in our little hotel window…
Things aren’t great right now. But these things are! I’d love to hear what sorts of media or hobbies are keeping the horrors at bay for you these days. Feel free to shoot me a message with your recent favorites. 📖 Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir I really didn’t know much about this series going in aside from a recommendation from Ethan Marcotte and art from Annalise Jensen . But I’ve been cooling…
Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of building a Font Awesome Edition Mode Sonnet live on Twitch. Scratching off yet another item from my list for the year! The keyboard itself had been sitting in a closet for the better part of a year since the Web Awesome Kickstarter , waiting for me to finally decide that my setup was “good enough” to stream 😅 The full build, for the keeb-curious: Font…
Let’s just take a second to appreciate trains. When me and the fam went to New York in January , we took Amtrak from Buffalo to the Big Apple — but the Eurostar from Amsterdam to Paris was on a whole ‘nother level. Sure, comparing the two may be unfair considering they’re different types of rail service, but let’s do it anyway. Amtrak Empire Service (Buffalo Depew → Moynihan Train Hall) Distance:…
I’d planned to put these posts up much closer to when the trip actually happened in March, but life (as always) finds a gets in the way. Work stuff (prepping Font Awesome 7 !) and family stuff (health & losing our dog of 11 years) both took their toll over the last couple months. New York was kind of a practice run for this spring’s next adventure: a family trip with the in-laws to the Continent…
It’s butterfly time again, so here’s a general appreciation post for Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park . It just might be my favorite place in all of Grand Rapids. If you’re ever in West Michigan, I highly recommend a visit! Yesterday morning, I charged my Fujifilm X-T5, the fam grabbed some brioche donuts at The Sparrows (via The Doughnut Experience ), and we headed over. Morpho Peleides…
Last week, my partner and I packed up the kiddo for her first big trip that wasn’t just to see family. New Yawk City, baby! One Vanderbilt as seen from Bryant Park the night we arrived Morning view from our hotel between Times Square and Bryant Park Our first full day was mostly spent at the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side. The last time I’d spent any reasonable amount of…
Not to yuck anyone’s New Year’s resolution yum, but they’re not for me. Which isn’t to say I don’t appreciate some reflection when the calendar flips (because I do) — but I’ve found that smaller, more actionable steps lead to better results for me than something vague and evocative like “🫵 get in shape.” If you have any tips for habit-building or other little improvements that have helped you,…
Hi there! It’s been a bit. If I felt like last spring/summer was busy with speaking prep for Config 2023 , this one felt doubly so. Also I was holding off on posting because of (unsuccessfully) trying to redesign this place for the last 11 months. Anyway here are some things that happened since the last time I wrote in January: Into the Awesomeverse I helped launch and maintain our Kickstarter…
It’s time for the Enjoyment Roundups’ big brother: favorite media of the year! If you, like me, are snowed in at home right now, maybe there are some nuggets on this list to help you pass the time. Films Whether you’ve played the game or not, it’s just a great time. Another slow new movie year for me. Turns out if I have a free evening, I’d rather play video games or watch something shorter or…
I loved reading through Chris Coyier and Matt C’s lists (and this is easier than the post about apps that I was planning), so here goes: 📨 Mail Client: Mimestream 📮 Mail Server: Google (personal), Hover (professional) 📝 Notes: Apple Notes or Tot ✅ To-Do: Apple Notes 📷 Photo Shooting: Halide on iPhone 14 Pro (though I’ve got my eyeballs on a Fuji x100v if they ever come back in stock) 🎨 Photo…
Back in 2015 during my second read-through of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, I got the itch to make my own little iconographic representations of the base Allomantic metals and their powers. My goal was to strip things down to some simple visual language: It was a fun and quick little project — and I didn’t think much about it until last year when Isaac Stewart, art director for…
Here it is in all its glory: our icon talk from Config 2023. If you have ever laid awake in the small hours of the night, wondering: How do you make an apple pie? What’s cooler than math? Why is this trophy so sharp? then watch above, and all this and more shall be answered. “Hey kid, ya like icons?” Big words, or tiny Jory? Tim and Cole seemed to like it 💌 Find a mistake? Got something nice to…
It’s been a minute! Work and family have been keeping me on my toes. Not to mention that since the last Roundup, I redesigned my site, released my Famicase entry , and have been writing a talk with Jory Raphael to deliver at Config next week! (Also trying to exist across the hellscape of 3 separate text-based social media platforms — but that’s another topic for another post.) And of course in…
It’s the most wonderful time of the year again, the My Famicase Exhibition ! I mentioned this briefly in the last Enjoyment Roundup ; but for more context, My Famicase is a little show put on every spring by Satoshi Sakagami of METEOR gallery in Nishi-Ogikubo, Tokyo. Every year, folks from all over the world get to design brand new, imaginary games for the Super Famicom system (Japan’s version of…
One year ago today, I started working at Font Awesome . I’d already been planning on writing a bit about the experience and how it’s been different; but last month, Lynn Fisher posted an excellent list of things she wants from a job . The earnestness of her words helped clarify my own thoughts and put some things in perspective. But first, a little background. I used to work remote at a Canadian…
More things have been enjoyed! I’ve also been tinkering with some style updates to the site and blog, but they’re not ready for primetime quite yet. I’d thought my design was pretty settled for a while, but as always Marcotte’s Law holds true. 📖 The Politics of Design by Ruben Pater You are privileged. Just reading this sentence makes you part of the 85% of the world population that is literate,…
Tangentially related to my Enjoyment Roundups , I thought it’d be fun to go through various media I most enjoyed this past year. Films So glad Ke Huy Quan is getting his flowers. Having a kid really changes your media habits, not to mention the whole ongoing global pandemic thing. So I didn’t get out to ye olde cineplex as much as I have in the past. Everything Everywhere All at Once Nope After…
So I’ve already been doing this for a bit on Twitter , but I figured a longer form version with additional context could be fun. I don’t really have a regular cadence for this in mind — basically whenever I’ve experienced enough different things across various media that pique my interest. 📖 Twenty Bits I Learned About Making Websites by Dan Cederholm I’ve been a Dan Fan™ for a long while, and…
Well hello there, new friend. This blog may not look like much yet, but I wanted to get a space set up sooner rather than later for my forthcoming thoughts. And while the paint may change, the bones will stay the same — so why not go ahead and move in? Some potential posts coming down the pipe: “Job Awesome” (reflections on one year at Font Awesome ) “Fundamentals of Icon Design v2” (cleaning up…