Articles · 57 articles
Articles.
Reflections on digital products, artificial intelligence and design.
Article list
- 27 · 05 · 2026 Excesses AI lets us produce more than the world can read. The loop holds even when everyone knows it's there. The interesting question stops being how to produce and becomes what deserves to exist.
- 20 · 05 · 2026 What cannot be verified Andrej Karpathy says LLMs automate what can be verified. The unverifiable layers of design are exactly where senior judgment lives. AI is not inventing that frontier — it is making it visible.
- 07 · 05 · 2026 Languages Programming used to mean speaking the rigid syntax of a machine. AI has reversed the demand: machines now tolerate ambiguity, and the skill that matters is the older one — knowing what we want to say.
- 29 · 04 · 2026 The Dregs of Dead Men Cai Lun did not invent paper. He systematized something that already existed and scaled it. A reflection on craft, distributed knowledge, and the hand that knows before the mind reasons.
- 16 · 04 · 2026 Gesamtkunstwerk A reflection on how AI is changing professional knowledge, from specialized craftsmanship to fluid expertise, and where human differentiation truly lies.
- 09 · 04 · 2026 Compile A personal reflection on writing a novel and building an app simultaneously, exploring the similarities between debugging code and editing fiction.
- 16 · 03 · 2026 Objects and relationships As AI homogenizes creative outputs, the real differentiation shifts from what we build to how we build it—from objects to relationships.
- 11 · 03 · 2026 From boring notes to catchy song A designer creates TuNotes, an AI-powered app that transforms study notes into catchy songs, exploring the intersection of music and memory for better learning.
- 09 · 03 · 2026 AI and the origin of ideas A personal reflection on how AI conversations blur the boundaries of creative authorship, comparing the experience to altered states of consciousness.
- 12 · 02 · 2026 Life Without a Roadmap A reflection on product development through the lens of travel planning—exploring when to follow rigid roadmaps versus embracing flexible improvisation.
- 06 · 02 · 2026 When observing transforms the observed A reflection on how the act of observation changes behavior, from street photography to user research, and the challenge of capturing authentic truth.
- 29 · 01 · 2026 Safespeak How constant recording of our conversations is creating 'safespeak'—a calculated, ambiguous language designed to survive surveillance at the cost of authenticity.
- 17 · 12 · 2025 749 cans A designer reflects on lessons learned from preparing 749 canned goods packages, drawing parallels between physical packaging constraints and digital product development.
- 25 · 11 · 2025 The Facades of Chongqing A personal reflection on Chongqing's cyberpunk facades and the gap between spectacular surfaces and hidden realities in modern China.
- 23 · 10 · 2025 Prompts for Better Thinking Writing good prompts isn't just about getting better AI responses—it's a form of cognitive cultivation that transforms how we think and understand problems.
- 18 · 09 · 2025 When I met a Mexican photographer in the bathroom of a club in Berlin A chance encounter with a Mexican photographer working as a bathroom cleaner in a Berlin club sparks reflections on human identity and organizational potential.
- 03 · 09 · 2025 Kowloon vs Le Corbusier A comparison between Le Corbusier's rational architecture and Kowloon Walled City's organic growth, exploring how digital products can learn from emergent design.
- 06 · 08 · 2025 Individual Echo Chambers AI creates the most sophisticated echo chambers ever conceived, operating at an individual level to validate our biases and erode our capacity for critical thinking.
- 24 · 07 · 2025 When Avatars Lie A critical examination of hyperrealistic digital avatars and their impact on trust, authenticity, and human connection in our digital interactions.
- 15 · 07 · 2025 Ignorance A reflection on how ignorance and naivety can be fertile ground for innovation, especially when experimenting with AI and breaking conventional approaches.
- 02 · 06 · 2025 MAPIA: building a product in 6 weeks A 6-week journey building MAPIA, an AI-powered tool that personalizes mass emails, featuring technical challenges, user feedback, and key learnings about vibe coding.
- 26 · 05 · 2025 Unimodal and Multimodal Interfaces Exploring how conversational interfaces work through voice-only, text-only, and multimodal approaches, and why combining different communication channels creates better user experiences.
- 19 · 05 · 2025 The hyperpersonalization of digital products AI is enabling a return to craftsmanship in digital products through hyperpersonalization, making tailored applications economically viable at scale.
- 10 · 09 · 2024 Who was Jim Thompson? The fascinating story behind Jim Thompson, from his days as a CIA spy to becoming Thailand's Silk King, and his mysterious disappearance in Malaysia.
- 18 · 05 · 2024 Coworkers A photo series introducing Visual team members Laura, Verónica, Hugo and Alberto, showcasing their diverse backgrounds and personal stories.
- 03 · 01 · 2024 Carlos Gardel was French A chance encounter with a French writer in a Parisian café reveals insights about designing for real people rather than abstract user personas.
- 24 · 09 · 2023 Hanoks and door knockers Reflections on traditional Korean hanoks and how modern doorbells have replaced the nuanced expression of door knockers, losing human emotion in favor of convenience.
- 02 · 08 · 2023 Street Photography and Voice Interfaces A reflection on how device miniaturization affects privacy and user behavior, exploring whether voice interfaces will reverse the trend toward private, discrete interactions.
- 15 · 05 · 2023 Samurais and Emotional Contagion Exploring how samurai Miyamoto Musashi's 400-year-old teachings on emotional manipulation anticipated modern discoveries in psychology and neuroscience about social contagion.
- 24 · 04 · 2023 Johnny Silverhand and the Design of Scarcity Exploring how Cyberpunk 2077 uses time scarcity as a design element and the psychology behind how scarcity affects decision-making and creativity in both games and life.
- 15 · 01 · 2023 Language and reality A deep dive into linguistic relativism, exploring how language shapes our perception of reality through the lens of the endangered Kuuk Thaayorre language and cognitive psychology research.
- 13 · 11 · 2022 Design, emotions and beauty A reflection on the role of emotions and beauty in design, challenging the minimalist obsession with simplicity and exploring why we need more emotional connection in our products.
- 09 · 10 · 2022 Radios and distance education The story of how pedal-powered radios in 1920s Australia led to distance education and ultimately inspired the creation of Moodle.
- 15 · 08 · 2022 Electric Car Sonification A reflection on electric car sound design, exploring how different vehicle sounds could create urban acoustic chaos and advocating for context-aware sonification.
- 04 · 08 · 2022 Microinteractions in vidiv A technical deep-dive into documenting microinteractions for vidiv, exploring utilitarian vs. delightful animations and their implementation guidelines.
- 07 · 07 · 2022 A Pirate Tale A design case study exploring the sound design and mechanics of a pirate-themed mobile game that uses spatial audio and moral choices to create an immersive experience.
- 15 · 06 · 2022 Child's Play A design analysis of the OP-1 synthesizer and how its playful, child-like interface breaks away from conventional music production tools to embrace pure creativity.
- 09 · 05 · 2022 Man 474,481 The story of Albert Speer, Nazi party member #474,481, who became Hitler's architect and created the monumental Cathedral of Light.
- 05 · 04 · 2022 Designing for War A reflection on how the Israeli army appropriated postmodern theory and design thinking to revolutionize urban warfare through creative destruction.
- 16 · 03 · 2022 Task-centered design A design approach analyzing four key elements: user, context, device, and interface. Compares task-centered design with traditional user-centered design methods.
- 16 · 02 · 2022 Non-Things by Byung-Chul Han Personal reflections on Byung-Chul Han's book 'Non-Things' and its insights on possession, digital ownership, and contemporary art.
- 03 · 02 · 2022 The Algorithm Spiral and Echo Chambers A personal reflection on echo chambers and algorithms, arguing that they're not inherently evil but simply digital versions of natural human behavior and preferences.
- 20 · 01 · 2022 Huế and the Metaverse A personal reflection on masks throughout history—from ancient stone masks to modern VR headsets—contrasting real experiences with virtual promises.
- 31 · 12 · 2021 Wall-e and the Bouba/Kiki Effect Exploring the relationship between object shapes and sound waves through the Bouba/Kiki effect and how this psychological phenomenon can inform design decisions.
- 13 · 12 · 2021 Monitors A comparison between audio production's use of multiple monitor types and how digital designers might be limiting their work by exclusively using high-end Apple displays.
- 23 · 11 · 2021 Menéame and Car Thing A design exercise exploring the hybridization of Spain's Menéame platform with Spotify's Car Thing device to expand product boundaries into new territories.
- 01 · 11 · 2021 Bananas and NFTs A personal reflection comparing NFTs to Cattelan's banana artwork, questioning whether digital ownership truly revolutionizes art or just monetizes digital clutter.
- 06 · 09 · 2021 Inclusive design A personal story about how digital design can exclude people, told through the experience of a man with vision problems who lost his job when analog controls were replaced.
- 05 · 08 · 2021 Vocation vs. industry A reflection on how the systematization of design has industrialized the profession while moving away from the creative impulses that originally draw people to design.
- 16 · 07 · 2021 The Relative Perception of Color and Acoustic Tone Exploring the relationship between Josef Albers' color theory and acoustic perception through Victor Moscoso's psychedelic posters.
- 28 · 06 · 2021 Pixel and microsound, line and tone Exploring connections between design and sound, establishing basic units like pixels/points and microsounds as fundamental building blocks.
- 23 · 06 · 2021 Nostalgia A personal reflection on nostalgia and cultural connections across time and space, exploring how music from different eras creates feelings of longing for places never visited.
- 02 · 06 · 2021 The Impact of Interface on Music Creation A designer's personal exploration of how different synthesizer interfaces shape music creation, from Moog's familiar keyboards to Buchla's experimental controls.
- 12 · 05 · 2021 Fashion is danger A personal reflection on minimalism in design, contrasting Céline's controversial logo change with Virgil Abloh's approach to contemporary design and zeitgeist.
- 27 · 04 · 2021 @spiderman A philosophical exploration of how we create personal simulacra on social media, transforming reality into staged hyperreality where we become our own superheroes.
- 30 · 03 · 2021 Dieter's Spoon A reflection on Dieter Rams' functionalist design philosophy through the lens of imagining his kitchen utensils, questioning whether purely functional design ignores cultural meaning.
- 10 · 03 · 2021 Writing and design A reflection on how written language evolved from pictographs to kanjis to emojis, and whether digital communication is simplifying language in ways that may limit thought.