Little known fact: I have a pension for self-improvement books. One of which I’m reading is by 99U, “Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind,” and there’s plenty of interesting essays and articles by very smart, creative and well respected people. It’s the kind of book you read one essay — or topic — per session kind of read.

I’m nearing 200 pages into the book and was excited to see that the next chapter was an interview with the prodigious Stefan Sagmeister.

A few paragraphs in, I have a book-lowering, time-stopping,
“Holy…SSSHHH” moment…

Have you heard of Dwolla? Most likely you haven’t. I promise I’m not employed or contracted to advertise for Dwolla. I’m just one of those proselytizing users startup founders talk about. I also lived in the midwest where they are based in Des Moines, IA. (I know you probably haven't heard of that either :-)

Back to the point. I’m not sure where I found Dwolla but I know now it’s pretty amazing. It almost seems too good to be true.

Dwolla is a payment network that allows any business or person to send, request and accept money. We’re not…

Learning to design is a complex psychological process. Sure there are savants that just exude skill and confidence but for the rest of us, it’s a life-long process. We yearn to create what we can imagine in our minds eye yet it comes out about like a toddler drawing with crayon on paper. The more we learn our skills the more we confident we become, just like anything in life. A blank page was terrifying as a novice, now it’s beautiful to see.

Before design school, the largest head game for me was high jump in high school track. This…

I have had this in my drafts since a couple days after his celebration of life. It’s taken some time to get back to but I wanted to write something about Donald, let’s call it my grieving process.

Don was a character. Don Skyped daily. Don loved innovation, people and lastly food. I met him a few years ago in Wichita, Kansas. You see, Donald McArthur was my wife, Erin’s, grandfather. Six months ago he passed at the spry age of 91.

I found a lot of commonality with Don;
he was a man of my own passionate heart.

Don…

One year out of university and ten months into a full-time job I have made some strides into reality. Adjustment to reality however is something that does not come easy and some aspects may never come. My walks to cool off have become less frequent and I’m not sure whether to be scared or comforted by that.

I like to think of myself as someone astute and steadfast to their beliefs; some may just call this stubbornness. Most of my ideals are the pure fundamentals of good design (think Braun). Proportions are crucial, Arial is not Helvetica, quality over quantity…