19 02 25

Creative Boom’s Katy Cowan on resisting Substack and disillusionment with the social web in general:

I’ve seen what happens when you rely on these spaces. Twitter, once a joyful community, became a hotbed of extremism. Meta, with its ever-changing rules, squeezed engagement unless you paid up. Instagram? The endless algorithm updates feel like PTSD triggers. LinkedIn, the last beacon of hope, is heading the same way. I’ve had enough.

I want to own my platforms. My website, newsletter, podcast, magazine, and now a private community—spaces where I call the shots. No world-domination-mad freaks deciding my fate. No sudden algorithm changes tanking my reach. I’m the boss, no one else.

20 02 25

Since the late 1950s, David Hurn has been photographing people engrossed in whatever they’re reading, from books and broadsheets to laptops and phones. His new book, On Reading, is a homage to the power of a good page-turner.

19 12 24

A big thank you to The Casual Optimist (aka Dan Wagstaff) for including my cover for Antonia Hylton’s Madness in Notable Book Covers of 2024. I always look forward to this list – Dan has an amazing eye for what’s going on in the field – so it means a lot to find myself on there.

17 12 24

I’ve found myself on the New York Times’ 73 Best Illustrations of 2024 list, for my front page of Sunday Opinion back in April. I’ve done a few NYT things recently, but this one was a real joy, working alongside art director Akshita Chandra.

18 11 24

Just returned from Thought Bubble in Harrogate, always one of the most joyful weekends of the year. It’s not one of those “Funkos as far as the eye can see” comic conventions, this is one with actual comics and actual creators. Hundreds of them. There’s just this incredible atmosphere of inclusion and inspiration, I love it. Emma Rios, Will Dennis and Jock did a great panel on the art of cover design; my boy had a whale of a time in the Phoenix workshop; but by far the highlight of the whole thing for me was getting to meet Simon Furman. Simon Furman. And he was lovely. If you ever get to meet and thank the person who made you read as a child, it’s quite overwhelming I can tell you.

17 11 24

It’s been quite a week for Bluesky. More of a stampede than a migration, the general vibe there right now is optimistic and troll-intolerant. It’s great to see actual humans at the core of it, rather than fascism or advertising – it’s absurd that chronological, non-algorithmic conversations should feel like such a novelty!

That said, I’m trying to maintain a modicum of caution about it all. It remains to be seen how long this honeymoon period will last, and surely it’s only a matter of time before the awful people start to infect the place with their awful ways. One thing they absolutely must introduce is some form of verification process. Yes, you can change your handle to your domain name (as I have) but this is very far from perfect – not everyone has a domain to connect to, and it’s all too easy to set up a domain that looks like it could be somebody’s official site.

To get a bit more understanding of why and how the Bluesky thing is happening, and where it sits in the context of other X-alternatives, check out these posts by Ian Dunt and 404’s Jason Koebler.

4 11 24

“Links are the whole goddamned point of the web!” – I finally signed up for kottke.org membership (and not just because I get sort of mentioned in this post). Good old-fashioned blogging-and-hyperlinking; sites like Jason’s are absolutely essential to maintaining some humanity on this big old web.

8 7 24

No idea how I’ve lived this long without seeing Jen Orpin’s oil paintings of British motorways, but they are bloody gorgeous … Like illustrations from JG Ballard’s personal collection of Ladybird books, with a bit of Gerry Anderson roadside architecture thrown in for good measure

3 7 24

Pestka, Magdalena Wywrot’s stunning new collection of black and white photography is … hang on, where’s the blurb … “a gravity-defying, through-the-looking-glass portrait of the life of a mother and her adolescent daughter, a series of time-lapse dispatches seemingly beamed from a hermetic space station suspended high above a planet (and Krakow, Poland) where time is literally standing still”

29 6 24

Fantastic and exceedingly timely Elizabeth Goodspeed piece, talking to creatives about on what happens when your style becomes a trend and is widely adopted, aped and AI-leeched

28 6 24

Kiosk: The Last Modernist Booths Across Central and Eastern Europe – a starkly beautiful photobook by Zupagrafika chronicling the vanishing Soviet-era kiosk designs across the ex-Soviet world

17 6 24

Some wise words from Austin’s typewriter interview with Chase Jarvis:

Most photographs fail to connect with the viewer because they are too complicated/they have too much going on, Capturing a single subject in a simple story in a single frame is (or ought to be) the goal. But most people don't capture or compose their images with this in mind – and so the results, story, and intended outcome rarely lands. … Another surprising thing is that photographic competence has very little to do with technology or gear. A photo is a is a single frame: story that simply relies on 3 key elements: composition, connection, and light. If you focus (pun intended)on these 3 things you'll be surprised at how quickly your photography improves.