critique
A distinct and complementary stance
Scholars and critics
Starved for good journalism and criticism
Downsides of the internet
The McClusky Curve
The dying art of the hatchet job
An Article by Dorian LynskeyI find that the act of disagreeing with a sharp takedown sharpens my appreciation of the work in question. If I have to think a bit harder about what I like and why I like it, that’s fine by me, especially when it’s something that has been almost universally acclaimed.
...It’s not that I long for an epidemic of gleeful brutality but I will always cherish the right of critics to express their hate, hate, hate in the ultimate service of what they love, love, love.
Discourse in web design
An Essay by Jason Santa MariaA website is its own, singular thing. We know it isn’t a book, a TV show, a film, or a song, but our language is limited to talking about it in those restrictive boxes. A website is a mix of all of those things, and none of those things. It is influenced by place and time. A website changes with age. It can evolve and regress.
It was then I wondered if the problem wasn’t that web design lacked its own Emigré. What if we actually lacked a shared language to critically discuss web design? Art, architecture, and even graphic design, have critics and historians that give context to new work through the lenses of culture and important work from the past.
Design Discourse is in a State of Arrested Development
An Essay by Khoi Vinh[Designer News] is good, useful content, but most of it is written by designers themselves. Taken as a whole, it’s also a useful illustration of something vital that our industry lacks: balanced, insightful, independent writing that critically evaluates the profession.
One Designer's Response to Khoi Vinh's Complaint
An Article by Brandon DornThere is a place for discussing technique, for which forums like r/Design, Designer News, and the like are well suited. Yet expecting these platforms to provide insightful, serious critical discussion is like going to McDonald’s for an artisanal sandwich. Sure, they may advertise that, but that’s not really what you’re getting.
Meditations
Gravity without affectation
From Sextus: The idea of what it means to live in accordance with nature; gravity without affectation, and a careful regard for the interests of one's friends.
Flesh and a bit of breath
Whatever it is that I am is flesh and a bit of breath.
Any life
Even if you were to live for three thousand years or ten times as long, you should still remember this, that no one loses any life other than the one that he is living, nor does he live any life other than the one that he loses, so the shortest life and the longest amount to the same.
A little thing
Cast everything else aside, then, and hold to these few truths alone; and remember, furthermore, that each of us lives only in the present, this fleeting moment of time, and that the rest of one's life has either has either already been lived or lies in an unknowable future. The space of each person's existence is thus a little thing, and little too is the corner of earth on which it is lived.
Praise has no part in it
Everything that is in any way beautiful is beautiful of itself and complete in itself, and praise has no part in it; for nothing comes to be better or worse for being praised.
Carrying a corpse around
You are a little soul carrying a corpse around.
As Epictetus used to say.
Avenge yourself!
The best way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are.
The clapping of tongues
(for praise from the crowd is simply the clapping of tongues)
Giving up the struggle
How shameful it is that, in this life, when your body does not give up the struggle, your soul should do so first.
Why?
The cucumber is bitter? Then cast it aside. There are brambles in the path? Step out of the way. That will suffice, and you need not ask in addition, "Why did such things ever come into the world?"
Poured
The light of the sun seems to be poured down, and to be poured, indeed, in every direction, but not poured away.
Wanting for nothing
Some day, will you be satisfied and want for nothing, yearning for nothing, and desiring nothing, animate or inanimate, to cater to your pleasures?
Laughter
—and my heart laughed within me.