Week 40, 2026: Field notes

This week was yet again uneventful, although it had a long weekend.

I spent time vibe coding two projects this week. My goal now is to add some side-projects to my portfolio. On Wednesday and Thursday, I polished / refined the case study content in my portfolio.

Over the long weekend, I first resumed work on one of my side projects from back in May. (The Creative Practice inspiration page.) What I did this time is to have ONE inspirational piece show up per day. Again, here is the live version. I added an Archive page to see past inspirational entries. I might build or add to this, but for now I think I’ve hit a wall in terms of thoughts and ideas.

I worked on another side project, called “Field Notes”. This one is a small public site for the inspirational images that I saved in the past and forgot (things that caught my eye). I put all of my saves in one place and added filters that sort them by colour, kind, and mood. Each entry gets a number, a colour palette pulled from the pixels, and up to three keywords depicting the mood, from a short list I wrote myself. Intentionally developing my taste is my core goal here. That, and keeping track of my taste as it develops? Here is the live version.

I’ve decided for the latter to be featured in my folio (under a different page called “Play”, maybe.) I’m not fully committed yet at this moment, though. I think it could be a neat little tool for moodboarding or getting some quick inspiration from stuff that designers either notice / save. It might be interesting to see how this idea evolves.

(Both of these ideas use content from my Are.na channels, as sources.)

I also spent some time watching videos on YouTube, some design talks. Most notably:

• The Courage to Design, by Bob Baxley. This talk was interesting, specifically in the way Bob talks about the “building blocks” of courage: Curiosity, Vulnerability, and Conviction. We designers have a mix of these building blocks in us in different proportions, some higher than others (example: my vulnerability is higher 😅). I think the key here is to have a balance of all three traits. To be a designer is to be courageous.
• How to scale intent, quality, and artistry with AI, by Katie Dill. My takeaways include designers cultivating intentionality or a strong point of view as they work and build systems using AI. Good storytelling, especially towards the end when she illustrates intentionality, showing an example of the numerous iterations for a small illustration that her team at Stripe built using AI.

Apart from that, I’ve been playing Forza Horizon 5 here and there. Today I read many more pages of The Secret History; good progress overall.