Notes from intermission: what happened, what’s coming
Intermission is essentially over.
Us
Here are some bullet points:
- We’ve folded our paid community into our letters going forward. Email gets read. Our writing exists to be read. Conscious attention to the practice is necessary if we’re going to survive the next decade.
- We’re going to continue making the next book, but when things are ready it will be distributed… quietly. Think “our laser printer + handwritten letters” quietly. Kindred spirits only for now. This will be our final update until it’s ready for wider consumption, which may be never.
- Updates will be more freeform going forward, and they may not happen exactly on Tuesdays, or every Tuesday. This is more in alignment with the practice, which must be protected, of course.
- We finished everything we wanted to do in intermission early. We’re still going to rest a little between now and when we said we were going to resume work. Creating more spaciousness can only help the business. Within apocalypse, it is structurally necessary to create periods of deep rest & spaciousness. After all, we’re sure to uncover things that we hadn’t thought about before!
- Paid updates will be on Thursdays, usually. Previously they were sporadic. Now they will be less sporadic.
- Towards that end, this Thursday we’ll be sending our first paid member update summarizing a few changes and providing next steps.
- We’re accepting new consulting work for kickoff in April 2025. You may apply here, or get a retainer to start a conversation now and skip the line.
Okay, that’s a lot about us, thank you for soldiering through all of it. Now let’s talk about you.
You
We recognize & honor the current moment. It is, for most of us, bad. We all know, roughly, what’s coming.
Here, on this list, we’re supposed to talk about design – and alas, design already wasn’t doing great before November 05. Without comprehensive resistance from everyone, what do you think is going to happen now?
And so I turn to some therapy-grade questions. What is in control in front of you right now? What can you do with your practice?
I’m asking these not because the entire situation is irrelevant, but because it’s outside of your control. The collective has never been more resistant to outside influence; we will all move how we choose to move. This is objectively terrible, of course, but knowing it brings about a measure of clarity. And more is within your control than you think.
One’s focus must narrow. What is in front of us, right now? Who will we take care of? Who are we able to care for? In what ways will we be caring for ourselves?
The answers to these questions might seem to have nothing to do with design, but they remain everything, for all of us.
As we move out of this period of rest, I invite us to more deeply consider the ways in which we will use design to nourish the collective. Our work has never been more urgently needed.