Now I let it fall back in the grasses.
I hear you. I know this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious on this earth.
But what are you trying to be free of?
The living? The miraculous task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
— Joseph Fasano, For a student who used AI to write a paper
Today is a day I’d like to embrace everything. The books, the walks, the look at my phone. A man seems to approach me, I quickly get dressed up in my human-contact-suit. Smile, open eyes, wide gaze. But he saw right through me, maybe he was somewhere else. I am invisible.
Writing prompt from our Writing = Design workshop: 10 minutes of automatic writing; read through it and find a theme, write a short paragraph only with words from the automatic writing.
Coordinates: I am typing this—again!—on a train, as this seems to be the only place for me to unplug from the world and jot down some words. As night falls, one very orange strip of light just disappeared behind the horizon, somewhere between Germany and Austria. Here we are.
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Recently I’ve been thinking about the value in my work, and the current times I work in. In my day job I make websites; tons of buttons and rounded corners and modules and typographic pairings and responsive grid layouts. A significant other part of my job is writing proposals and documentation for these websites, and communicating with the people they are made for—clients, and luckily also the viewers and users of these sites.
What is it that adds value to these websites? Why are they worth making, viewing, using? I recently came back to a lecture from Frank Chimero from 2012, where he talked about doing things “the long hard, stupid way”. Ultimately, the talk was about making an effort, and about gift-giving.
So, what makes a good gift? It is personal. Its value is subjective; maybe it sparks joy, or adds ease to the recipient’s daily life. It is made with care and thought, and the less care and thought go into it, the less personal it becomes. I liked Frank’s idea of seeing the digital tools we make as gifts for others. Inefficiency—or doing things the long hard stupid way—can become an advantage, even a feature, if you think of it as a gift. A thing someone—you or I—cared for makes the world (the internet!) a more precious place. And isn’t that what we all need right now?
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The year has moved into April already, and I hope this email finds you well. Here are some work updates:
In July, Village One—our small design + tech cooperative—celebrates its 2nd birthday. It’s been a great and wild ride so far! From April on, however, I split my time between juggling projects for Village One and doing more freelance work for myself again. I want to write and draw more, and longed for a less repetitive day-to-day-life. Let‘s see how that goes!
Just like in recent years, Sonja and I will host another Writing = Design workshop at University of the Arts this summer. From July 22—26, we will explore writing as a design tool. You can learn more and sign up here; would love to see you there!
My friend Gabriel Yoran writes a great column for Krautreporter about the “enshittification” of the world: Why do products get worse and worse, whilst everything was promised to get better?! I am illustrating the series, have a look here (German).
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As the train approaches my destination, it emptied out almost completely. I love these quiet evenings on a softly rumbling train carriage, so peaceful and focussed. I hope you had a good start into the year so far. Daylight has been saved, spring is here, we made it!
By the way: You can subscribe to these (irregular) english posts via my email newsletter here.
The Mac turns 40! And as Marcel and other people on Mastodon are sharing their first Macs, I’m going to do that too. It really was a turning point for me.
I remember lurking around the iPod at Hertie (a big shopping center in Munich). Back in 2004, it wasn’t common in Germany to find Apple products in regular stores. I was thirteen years old, and started to get interested in design and tech, and as Marcel writes, there seemed no way around Apple products.
I got an iPod, but a Mac was still too expensive. Eventually, I got the chance to buy a second-hand PowerMac G3 from a family friend. It was my first Mac! It ran MacOS 8 and had all Adobe products installed.
But I wasn’t interested in Mac OS 8. I wanted Mac OS X! Panther! So I bought and installed it; it was slow and not really usable, but I loved it. Just like I loved the machine—the blue translucent plastic, the handles, the hatch to access the motherboard. Despite its slowness, it was so much fun to use iPhoto and iMovie and the likes on it.
My “real” first Mac was the first white Intel MacBook. It ran MacOS X Tiger, and I had so much trouble with it. It was broken constantly, I needed to have the motherboard replaced twice, and there were still hardly any Mac sellers in my area back then. It didn’t bother me. It made school so much more fun; using Keynote and iLife and making little websites on it. I was such a weirdo running around with this alienating piece of tech.
I also still really love the plastic cases of the mid-2000s Macs; they feel less precious and were nice to touch and use. I wish my current MacBook Air was built like that.
Anyway. Every once in a while, I get to use a Windows PC and I am still fascinated how different it is, how much wonkier it feels, and how odd the interfaces are. Mac OS Aqua really was the key reason to get a Mac for me—I was drawn to the glossy, whimsical interfaces and the product’s form factor. I still am.
As I got older and Macs just turned into a tool I needed for my work (and life, I guess), I started buying old Apple stuff on eBay, just to fulfill some teenage dreams. I don’t hoard Apple hardware excessively, but I keep some things around that I just love and cannot get rid of. One example is the 2003 Apple Cinema display with its acrylic case. The product design, inspired by a painter’s easel, just keeps delighting me. It’s not usable anymore with my M1 MacBook Air, but I loved writing my Master’s thesis on it in 2018.
My current setup, besides the MacBook Air, is a 2019 iMac with a huge 27″ inch retina screen. It’s great to use, but as it stands on my desk, taking up all that space, it lacks joy, at times.
Sitting on my couch, I’ve been staring into a wall of code for a couple of hours already. I’m trying to reorganize my website and digital outlets, updating my body of work; drawings and web design projects and writing. Learning new tools is hard, and I am not a programmer, and I have no patience. But I have a plan!
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While re-shuffling all those digital things, I was also trying to bring some clarity into my writing and newsletters and digital profile. Usually, I do not believe in separating professional and private things online: I am who I am, and I don’t post personal stuff that doesn’t belong on the internet anyway. But I found it tricky; my blog and social media posts often are written in German, which excludes all non-German-speaking audiences—specifically, the design and tech community.
So, regarding this publication’s future: I want to circle this newsletter back to its design writing roots. The earliest issues (2016!) were explorations on fake marble, filter bubbles and PIBA-DIBA. I will not be the 500st design newsletter in your inbox; this letter will stay personal and diary-like; it will include life and work updates as well as musings, but it will be my professional writing outlet.
If you’re German-speaking and interested in my monthly lists (no work stuff, just play!), you can sign-up for my monthly newsletter Fakten und Mirakel (“Facts and miracles”) here.
As my newsletter service TinyLetter finally, after years of neglect, is being shut down, I will move to Buttondown, a more independent, light-weight service. I found Mailchimp and other marketing tools to not be suitable (this is not a marketing email!), and Substack is, besides its ugly design, also questionable in many other ways. The more aware I become regarding my software usage (just like consuming food and buying clothes), the more difficult it gets. On a positive note, I am enjoying my consciousness, and making well-elaborated decisions. Most of the time, at least.
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Looking back at 2023: I worked a lot! With our coop studio Village One, we did some fantastic projects: we designed and built the new website for DemocracyNext, an action institute exploring democratic citizen assemblies. We rebranded and built a website for the Sovereign Tech Fund, who invests in digital infrastructure. And we are building and designing all digital outlets for Publix, a new house for journalism in Berlin.
Being involved in projects I care about really makes me happy. What was missing this year was time and space for my own projects; drawing and writing and maybe teaching. I will make room for this in 2024. So if you have a project or teaching gig or workshop in mind: Let me know!
Carving out time for personal work is especially difficult if your personal aspirations are so similar to your work setup: Mostly spent at a desk, mostly alone, thinking and trying out things. I find it hard to justify all this alone-time. But in the end: My time is mine, and that’s how it should be, no?
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For a couple of months, there’s been a little post-it sitting on my iMac’s screen frame. It says “If you want to be a writer: write”. I haven’t written much since, but it keeps me alert. And it counts for many things: If you want to be an artist: make art. If you want make progress: act. If you want to rest: switch off your phone. If you want to be a writer: write.
I hope you can leave the year at peace with yourself and others, and are eager for a new one—2024 is just around the corner. Another year, another round, make it count. Yours truly, 💌 Christoph
(If you enjoy content like this: I send it out as an irregular newsletter. Sign up for it here.)
Berlin, 6:25 pm, new note: I am typing this in iA Writer’s “focus mode”, a tool that highlights only the very current section that is being edited. I never use it because focus, what even is that?! Haven’t heard from her in years. And you, dear reader, haven’t heard from me and this letter in months, either, so: Welcome back.
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Some smaller towns in Italy have so-called “Necrologi.” Big analog boards in the center of the town, or at relevant pedestrian crossings, that originally announced the passing of a parishioner. When walking through the cities around Amalfi coast this summer, I saw them. Posters informed passers-by about recent deaths, yes, but also about upcoming celebrations, concerts and the town’s goings-on. They were not advertisement billboards; they were very local, specific platforms for communities to share events of interest.
The famous Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Company has been cultivating a wall of analog notifications for ages. On little paper notes, people share messages, stories, call-outs for other visitors to dig through and find each other. True love may or may not be found in those layers and layers of paper, but the board itself is a manifestation of romance that visitors long for. Paper as a real connection to a stranger.
And also: Do you remember BVG Augenblicke? Berlins public transport system, BVG, used to have a digital platform where people who shared a moment on the train—a smile, a gaze, a brief conversation with a stranger—could find each other again. Oftentimes, secondary romance is to be avoided (as it turns out less exciting as expected), but having the tools—both digital and analog—to give it a chance; it was magic. Technology was magic!
As a true millennial, I stopped believing in digital tools as true connectors for a while now. But I don’t mind it too much. I’m just over it, really. Like Jason Parham writes in his essay on wired.com: “It’s not that I consider myself too old for social media, or the pace and attention it requires. I’m just less interested in being everywhere these days.” Same, really. I still enjoy posting to my Instagram story from time to time or write a blog post when I have something to share or need to feel productive. It’s ok to realize that the magic has vanished. Maybe it’s to be found offline, on public notice boards and in book shops and on train rides and through the people I already know. Or within a little community of readers and friends like you—thanks for sticking around!
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The last issue of this newsletter was sent in May. Summer passed, the world still spins, sometimes and recently so furiously that it has been hard to manage. I hope you do, somehow.
One of my coping strategies: I keep writing my monthly lists. They keep up the feeling of being creative, or at least productive; it’s some output that comes around every month. If you’re interested in what’s happened during my summer, find some notes from June, or September, or simply scroll through this blog. I’m planning on sending them out as a separate newsletter in the future because who visits weblogs these days, really. I’ll keep this letter as an English format, though.
How was your summer? Where are you right now? I’d love to hear from you: What’s been keeping you spinning? I hope you’re well!
(If you enjoy content like this: I send it out as an irregular newsletter called Christel’s Corner. Sign up for it here.)
Futuro by Matti Suuronen
in front of Pinakothek der Moderne / Munich.