Now

Information

It’s been a few months since I made this ~/now page (and my inaugural quarterly update). So, I’m back with the latest news about what’s been happening in my personal and professional life.

At Axiom I’ve been continuing to make a series of patterns from typographic characters for swag, ads, sales collateral, and the site redesign. You can see an example with the new t-shirt design (TS-02) using the > character to make the Axiom logo mark. It’s proving to be a very fun and flexible system to use Berkeley Mono as a constant through the brand and design direction. As we build on the diagrams and patterns I can see a lot of potential to play and experiment further with motion and interaction. Exciting.

I recently finished up working with a coach that was organised as part of some professional development for the team. I’ve done some coaching before, and having another chance to be coached was a great opportunity to reflect and consider what I’ve learnt, as well as what areas I want to work on improving. It made me think a lot about this quote:

“Leadership is a journey in self awareness.”
— Sir Ashley Bloomfield (KNZM)

There’s two kinds of self awareness, internal and external. The longer I work with different people and companies, I’ve been able to see more clearly my own skills/flaws, through combining how I see myself (internal), and how others see me (external). I also believe there’s a lot of benefits in viewing leadership in a less traditional sense by finding ways to bring your personality and individuality to the role/responsibilities. Doing so can more positively impact culture, expectations, and connection within teams.

Alongside being professionally coached, I’ve been informally helping a handful of friends and old colleagues with various things like redundancies, interview practice, portfolio reviews, résumé editing, case study feedback, general career advice, recruitment, and team management.

As I gather my thoughts from both being coached and informally coaching others, I’ve realised a lot of my experiences can be useful for helping others, so if you think I can help, get in touch.
NB: I’ve been doing these coaching sessions over lunch or in the evenings, so have limited time slots available.

Outside of work I submitted two posters to Type Here, a local design competition. The posters needed to reflect the theme ‘Aotearoa Now’ with the suggestion “this may take the form of personal interpretation, political message or expression of aroha.”

I took a somewhat literal interpretation, by looking into the latest population and ethnicity data to see how many people “now” live in Aotearoa (5,374,562) based on offical estimates at the time the poster was designed. Similarly, with the river centreline design I wanted to comment on the current state of our environment. You can read more about the posters below, or see a larger image on my WIP page.

One of the reasons I was motivated to submit these two posters to the competition was that I’m disappointed in our governments rhetoric about Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Based on the 2023 census data “almost one million New Zealanders [are] of Māori descent”. We should be honouring our indigenous culture and language, not removing the use of Te Reo Māori from government departments. The other reason is the “fast-track” approval process for new bills impacting environmental policies and our international commitments on climate change.

Everywhere I look, things are feeling increasingly polarised and divisive, with genocide, fascism, war, and U.S. politics etc. all inflamed by social media. It’s a very depressing and concering time, which makes me think of this Māori whakataukī (proverb):

Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa.
Let us keep close together, not wide apart.
The Raupō Book of Māori Proverbs Te Kohikohinga Whakataukī A Raupō
⌙ A.E. Broughham & A.W. Reed. Revised by Tīmoti Kāretu

In more positive news, Ada turned six, and in keeping with tradition we made her a peanut butter birthday cake! After chicken, it’s her favourite thing, with peanut butter biscuits a regular snack. NB: If you’re going to get inspired and cook your floof treats, dogs can only eat unsalted peanut butter.

There’s been a lot of long walks around the peninsula, and as many beach visits as possible in between the winter rain. Ada’s also starting to enjoy a new change in routine where we dog-sit a friends’ puppy called Happy every Monday. Insert band joke... They get on really well and it’s a great way to start the week having two dogs doing zoomies.

And finally, some other highlights/updates include:

Until next time, live, laugh, log.

Below are the detailed descriptions for the two posters submitted to Type Here.

01. Aotearoa New Zealand — Population/Ethnicity:

This poster is a snapshot of the population and ethnicity of Aotearoa New Zealand showing the diversity and distribution of people across our regions.

Using 2024 population estimates and recently released 2023 census data from Tatauranga Aotearoa (Stats NZ) the design highlights the (estimated) number of people living here at the time the poster was created (30/06/2024), along with our largest ethnic groups, and the regions across Te Ika-a-Māui (North Island) and Te Waipounamu (South Island) where they live.

Of the people who call Aotearoa New Zealand home, one out of four were born overseas, with more than 200 different ethnicities living here. The country is divided into sixteen regions, with three out of four people living across the nine regions in Te Ika-a-Māui/North Island.

02. Aotearoa New Zealand — River Centrelines:

This poster provides commentary on the environmental impact the agriculture and forestry industries have had on our awa (rivers).

Using river centrelines data from Toitū Te Whenua (Land Information New Zealand), the map of Aotearoa New Zealand is central to this design to illustrate the scale of our awa. Alongside the map are three supporting statements based on reports from Manatū Mō Te Taiao (Ministry for the Environment), Tatauranga Aotearoa (Stats NZ), and Land Air Water Aotearoa (LAWA).

• — 95% of rivers flowing through pastoral land are contaminated ¹
• — 76% of freshwater fish are threatened or at risk of extinction ²
• — 60% of rivers are unswimmable and in poor condition ³

Numerous government agencies and academic institutes have undertaken research, published reports, and provided ongoing monitoring that confirms the contamination and degradation of our rivers, waterways, and lakes.

• ¹ Manatū Mō Te Taiao Ministry for the Environment
    ⌙ Our freshwater (2020)
• ² Tatauranga Aotearoa Stats NZ
    ⌙ Extinction threat to indigenous freshwater species (2021)
• ³ Land Air Water Aotearoa (LAWA)
    ⌙ Freshwater health monitoring results from all regions of New Zealand (2023)

Information

I’ve been meaning to make a ~/now page (inspired by NowNowNow). Now I have one. This is a summary of what’s been happening in my personal and professional life.

To start 2024 I’ve been looking back on the last few year/s. Phew. Way too many things to list and process. Some day I’ll write all about it.

For now, I made a page (and year in review reel) documenting the WIP redesign of Axiom.

A huge influence has been the use of Berkeley Mono as our brand typeface, lots of IBM’s design system, older interfaces, dense UI, and terminal screens. It’s been rewarding to find a style the team (and customers) love. There’s a long way to go, but I’m really excited with this direction.

Outside of work, I have been making changes around here and made this page, a new portfolio page, about page, and contact page (instead of annoyingly opening your email app when you click the contact link). The homepage had got too long over time, so work and personal information is now split into separate pages.

I’ve really enjoyed continuing to tinker with the site. Sometimes it’s been small changes I think of, or a weekend of making larger improvements. Mostly for no reason, and I’m not in the market for a new job. I’ve just seen (and experienced) the stress of not having an up-to-date portfolio and CV, so I now take the approach that it’s never done, and I work on the site for fun.

It’s also a chance to document the aesthetic and design principles I follow. This is the fourth “version” of the site since I moved to this domain in 2011. It’s mostly looked similar for each iteration, so the versions have just meant there’s more pages, images, lists, and nerdier details.

As the site has evolved, I’ve started to collect some of my favourite quotes (with the intention they’ll have their own page soon) that reflect how I think about design and creativity:

“The enemy of great is almost great.”
— The Edge (U2)

“He toi whakairo, he mana tangata. Where there is artistic excellence, there is human dignity.”
— Piri Sciascia (OMNZ, Kaumātua)

“Don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
— Winnie The Pooh (A.A. Milne)

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
— Steve Jobs (Apple)

“Design is a collaborative activity. It involves the input of many disciplines.”
— Tim Brown (IDEO)

“Innovation is missed by most people because it is so often incremental.”
— John Gruber (Daring Fireball)

Related, I recently stumbled across Cosmos. It’s like Pinterest, but with a much better UI design and focus on quality/creative work. I’ve not really taken to these curation tools, so this time I have made more of an effort to document a lot of the things/people/design that inspires me. There’s currently clusters of images for typography, black and white graphic design, mono fonts, logos, Apple, Braun, Sony, Vitsœ, IBM, and my favourite artist, Billy Apple.

I’m currently reading Shift Happens, an incredibly detailed book about keyboards, by Marcin Wichary. Spoiler: unfortunately the book is now sold out. There’s so many fascinating stories and details, all rigorously sourced and documented. The care and attention to detail Marcin has put into the book, throughout the entire production, is equally as impressive as the information in it. You can read all about what went into creating the book in his newsletter, which I highly recommend. There’s also a dedicated book companion site!

Noush has a new full-time job after getting struck by a layoff (uncannily about a year after I did). She’s found a great new role, but it’s damn tough out there. Also, in the midst of all of that, Ada got attacked by a Rottweiler! Absolute nightmare. We’re very lucky it wasn’t any worse than it was. Thankfully she’s doing better and there hopefully isn’t any lasting impact. For a lot of reasons, I’m very grateful to work from home. It really helped to have the flexibility and time to deal with an unexpected drama like this. It also means Ada is nearly always by my side.

Finally, I got really sick in 2023. I’m doing better now, but unsurprisingly it has changed my outlook on everything. It’s a cliché, but I simply just spend a lot more time doing the things I enjoy, with the people/dog (Noush & Ada) I care about.

I also cannot recommend laughing enough, it really is the best medicine.