007: Embroidered photography, bread tags, and the Eye on Design deletion

Plus toilet design and Enrique Olvera's beautiful home.

Aug 05, 2024

Welcome to Asset Library, my design-ish newsletter where I share inspiring and interesting design, tools, articles, etc. on the first Monday of the month.

Leave a comment

First things first, Staring at the Ceiling has a ~new look~, you can see my inspiration here. As I’ve been doing this for a few months, I have been figuring out what this newsletter is and is not, so I felt inspired to make a change. Nothing is forever, isn’t that nice?

📷 Embroidered Photography by Daniela Spector
I love when I see new and unexpected uses of mixed media mixed especially with added sentimentality. I want one of these with a childhood photo of my own.
This sweet little saying translates to "heal heal little frog butt" and is usually said to console children when they have been hurt.
🗞️ The Great Toilet Rebrand
Perhaps this is a sign that we’re moving away from the staid in the bathroom and toward an aesthetic that’s a little more playful and, dare I say, practical—it’s never fun to clean a bathroom, but it feels particularly impractical that the toilet is generally white porcelain and not any other color, texture, or finish under the sun. Your home reflects your personality in so many other ways, so— these brands seem to be saying—your bathroom should too.
📈 Trend report: the uptick in what I like to call Squire Core
I like this trend, I think it’s offbeat and cool, and enjoyed reading about it from Molly Rooyakkers, an amazing trend analyst.
In my opinion, the ugly shoe trend as well as the medieval headpiece trend reflects our contradicting needs for both in-group inclusion while also establishing ourselves as individuals. This is called the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory.
I’m also curious to know, on a macro level, what it means when culture trends skew medieval. Like how Emily Keegin describes the way Victorian era trends come back when conservative politics are on the rise.
Cara Delevigne at the 2024 Met Gala; Viv Chen via Mole Hill; Barry Keoghan for W Mag; Me in my handknit balaclava
🗞️ Thinking About: For the Love of Still Life
I love a good still life and appreciated this little roundup. Some still life photogs I like: Suzanne Saroff, Bobby Doherty.
🖍️ Wolff Olins' rebrand of the New York Botanical Garden
I love seeing branding inspired by nature, and this one really did not disappoint. Design eye candy.
🗞️ Carly Ayres on the disappointing wipeout of the AIGA Eye on Design Archive
Last month, AIGA decided to remove the beloved ten year old blog, Eye on Design, and it was met with disappointed outcries from the design community online. Carly Ayres is a great and critical voice in the industry, and I loved her write up about the greater responsibility around archiving work and its context and the disposability of art and content lately.
This incident raises some crucial questions:
Who is responsible for preserving our industry’s legacy in the digital age?
How can we ensure the continuity of design discourse when platforms can vanish overnight?
What does this say about AIGA’s understanding of the modern design landscape?
🗞️ This Enrique Olvera interview about his Valle De Bravo home, Casa O
Enrique Olvera is a Mexican chef (Pujol, Cosme) with great taste and I could hear him talk about anything. Here, he is interviewed about his rustic house in Valle de Bravo and he speaks beautifully about his home, spaces, and life. It made me delete all my social media apps immediately.
And yet, this sophistication seems paired, both in your work and at his house, with simplicity. So much is made by hand and is, for that reason, imperfect.
That also has to do with the passing of time. Age relaxes you, makes you more accepting. On many fronts, I have stopped fighting. For instance, in this patch right in front of the house, I wanted pollinators. I love bees—they are so important—and for my vision for this place in 100 years to come true, bees are essential. I was set on my pollinator garden. At first, I was tending to it all the time, constantly pruning and watering it. At one point, it struck me as stupid; I had to let things happen on their own. What didn’t grow just wasn’t right for the place.
Has this more easygoing approach also affected your work?
Definitely. I haven’t lost my appetite for success, but I no longer hunger for more than what I need. I don’t need my business to keep growing just for the sake of size. If this turned out to be where I got to, I think I would be proud and grateful I did so well. I think, on some level, this place signifies that contentment. I can stop running.

🌀 This very amusing database and taxonomy of bread tags

🗞️ Crafting the Visual Identity for Figmas Config 2024
I love when designers break down their design language, especially for events as anticipated and public facing as Config. Their methods show a systematic and playful approach to designing, which is difficult to do, but paid off with an expressive and effective design system.

Tell your friends about Staring at the Ceiling.

See you next time. On the first Monday of the month, you can expect Asset Library and on the third Monday of the month you can expect In the Clouds in your inboxes.