Photos

Slow evolution of the flag. I put this one through the kids filter and seeing the compass was an important distinction that it just clicked (while the previous abstract version did not).

This river I step in is not the river I stand.

Bridge in Toronto.

Working on something that’s been on my mind for years now.

Running out of space for stickers. Might need to get a new machine just to put new stickers on. 😂

Using the Astropad setup for the first time. One of the nice things is that there is an element of natural wriggle in the line. It is different.

Working on the February strip. I am looking to add some backgrounds, so will try a few options to see what some regular elements might be.

Meal prep for the week. I’m really loving creating a whole slew of dishes and sneaking a few portions as food for another time. The freezer has 4 different dishes ready to go. This is No.5 and I have another veggie dish tomorrow (soaking the lentils today).

There was diligence to his method, which resulted in a pretty uniform shaped sphere.

I think those geniuses at IKEA have finally cracked the loose tea steeper puzzle. How to make one that does not suck and is easy to clean. But wait, there’s more. The website reveals that it also it acts as a drip catcher! $3.99 (Canadian) for 2.

N.Cortolezzis & R.Giesen please take a bow. Well done.

First strip in 6 years maybe? Experimenting with a bunch of stuff at the moment, including hand lettering.

Trying something different. Digital ink. A completely stress free way of moving from my pencils into the final piece. Sure something might be lost, but actually a whole lot more is gained.

Ambient Hum Introduction

I wrote this introduction while in Tampa this summer and its great to finally share it because it captures my thoughts on this world I’ve created.

Moon Racket! is the story of two buddies living on the moon, making noise and eating cheese. It is also the story of my attempts at learning how to draw and write a comic series.

Comics as a medium has been a passion of mine since my early teens. Sadly I never really got around to the actual act of writing and drawing comics, rather spent time circling around the activity itself. And so it was that all of my previous attempts never amounted to any completed comic work - save a four page story for a Guardian/Observer newspaper comic competition called Coffee Beans. To help me fight through this inherent procrastination, the barrier for Moon Racket! was purposely set very low. The result was that for nearly a decade this world and it’s characters would be my main creative outlet. But lets start at the beginning.

At the start of 2010, I had a serious case of brain crack. Brain crack is a term coined by CGP Grey in an episode of the excellent podcast, Hello Internet, ‘…the longer we procrastinate on something we want to do, the more our brains build up expectations of how amazing it’s going to be. It’s like crack for your brain’. The project was based on an idea I had, after a hazy summer evening out in Athens when I was 21. I couldn’t let this idea go but I also couldn’t move it forward in a meaningful way either. Two events would enable me to break my brain free and allowed me to create my first real body of comic work.

Throughout the 2000s, my creative adventures had been spent developing and honing my web and graphic design skills. I had started life on the internet to help me publish my comic work, the issue was that I fell in love with the web itself. The web combined a lot of what I loved about comics in the first place, but in a vastly different format. The web in the early 2000s was an exciting place. I swam in this space for years until the internet landscape changed (which I attribute to Twitter and Facebook) and it stopped being exciting. Another piece of technology would also come out around this time that offered another creative avenue to explore, the iPhone. With the introduction of the iPhone 4, what was possible on this mini computer in your pocket was starting to expand. I decided that I would try and use this this $880 (the going rate with taxes) device to create a comic, each panel would be the size of the phone screen. While the idea was well conceived, it was beyond ambitious.

This entire series of characters was borne from a few images drawn on an iPhone 4 back in 2012. These were done using the crudest of styluses available at the time, which was a thin aluminium tube with a soft sponge attached to the end of it. The key elements of Corgan were there, the booties, long eyes and circles at all the joints. As I drew these characters, their world started to come into view for me. They lived on the moon. The moon was ostensibly made of cheese (and that would never run out of course). After realising that the little moon worm I had drawn was an organic being, he would need some form of air bubble around him to breathe (please don’t argue with my logic, it’s fragile). Very quickly however I hit technological limits. The combination of the crude stylus, the tiny screen and the poor feedback they both provided (when compared to my trusted Muji 0.38mm blank ink pen and Midori paper notebooks), would mean that I would stop this experiment early on. I count the experiment as a success, because it allowed me to create a new world to get lost in and finally shifted my attention to something different, setting my brain free.

In the early 2010s, my life was transitioning from being a single man, to a fiancé, then husband and finally a father. I was living in the Middle East during this time, which was also going through its own transition as a region, as part of the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring started of as a series of anti-government protests and uprisings that started off in Tunisia and would quickly spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Nearly a decade late, the chars of that movement are being felt in Syria which erupted into a civil war shortly after. I felt powerless to stop the strong humanitarian disaster that was unfolding around me, culminating in the image of Alan Kurdi washed up on the shore. An image which still haunts me to this day. My brain would retreat and search for a creative outlet to help me manage through this time.


I can’t even remember how or why I would end up calling the entire series Moon Racket!. What I do remember is that the form of logo was crystal clear in my head once I had settled on the name. From this word mark, I originally intended for the series to be filled with onomatopoeia (which is the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named). I don’t think it happened as often as I would have wanted, but that is certainly something I am looking to lean into more in the future.

Many decisions, that defined the Moon Racket! world would also arrive in a completely organic manner. It felt appropriate that the technology used throughout the series would be locked in the 1980s, while the architecture that was on display would be of the future. Strangely (even to me), the Moon and surrounding planets are characters themselves, complete with eyes, arms and hands.

In developing the the style of art, I went off what I felt looked right, a tactic laced with struggle and self doubt. It took a while to kick my propensity of cross-hatching and tried to create a vernacular that was is my own continues. Having never previously really spent any time developing a dynamic cartoony style of art before, the art would evolve the more I drew. My annoying perfectionism would take a back seat as I kept reminding myself that nobody was paying any attention, so it didn’t really matter. Keep moving. Keep drawing one strip after the other.

Even though he was the basis of the entire series, I struggled a great deal with the design of the Corgan character. In developing the shape of his body I would struggle with shape and form. I would keep adding new elements to his body, but would never feel truly comfortable in his depiction, until recently. By contrast Corgan’s third iteration, which has arrived years after I stopped drawing him in the manner he is presented in the this volume, now practically draws himself and rolls off my pencil.

Unsurprisingly the characters and this world, never really took off beyond a limited number of readers. This was expected, considering it would take me over a year to write and draw 20 strips. I didn’t publish nearly enough to build a habit with anyone, but mainly with myself. I ran out of energy, as things in my professional life started to take over and I need to focus a lot more on that side of my life. I decided to put the series on hiatus and capped it creatively, published in March 2017, with a movie poster style image capturing all the characters. The characters would come out of retirement briefly in 2021. I finally was able to fulfil my original vision of creating these on an electronic device. This time it was a 12.9” iPad Pro with an actual stylus (the Apple pencil). After I finally learnt how to draw and colour these characters, I ended up taking an extended break from them.

I could not imagine that these characters would stay with me as long as they have, but maybe that is down to the fact that I have not said all that I wanted to say. The next evolution of the Moon Racket! world is not in the artwork, rather it will be found in the type of topics that I would like to discuss. In defining the direction I want to take these characters in, I am reminded of my mother’s admiration for the political fables presented in Kalīla wa-Dimna, and using it as inspiration for future stories.

For now however, it feels good that the original groundwork for these characters and their world is collected in a single place.

Moon Racket! Ambient Hum is available to buy as a paperback.

Buy the paperback on Amazon ➔

Photo of my book Moon Racket! Cover
Photo of my book Moon Racket! Cover

The project for 2023 was the Moon Racket! collection, Ambient Hum. This one has been long in production. It’s nice to have a single place with all these stories collected.

Things have to move around a little once the final trade dress constraints come in. Book has been ready for several months, but needed to get this cover sorted first. Now time to pull it all together.

The cover is finally done! Lots to talk about, but just super happy that all the pieces of the book are now complete.

So Zane did this yesterday and I am absolutely floored by what he’s created! The thing I am most impressed by is the storytelling. An essential part to any comic narrative and he’s done so well here.

I’ve been on a serious food nostalgia trip this weekend. Made Lebanese rice pudding. The only missing ingredient was mastic (which I’m sure I can find somewhere in Toronto, just haven’t found the place yet).

When shit gets bad, I tend to fall back onto these characters for support. The process is key.

36 Click Pen

Automog 36 Click Pen

Over the last year I have really leaned into the Pentel Energel as my go to pen of choice. As was inevitable, I started looking around to see the best option for a machined pen for this refill. The 36 Click Pen by Autmog is that pen (when Brian makes it into a 0.5mm version), but getting something bespoke for this refill on such an elegant looking pen has now gone top of my list.

Onomatopia

I’m really loving how these chapter break pages came together for the Moon Racket! collection. I have been struggling with how to make these pages more visually interesting.

I tried using inverted images, but they just looked odd. Sometimes an idea just pops into your head and it just works.

Introduction Image Screenshot 2023 09 02 at 10 47 49 AM Screenshot 2023 09 02 at 10 47 57 AM Screenshot 2023 09 02 at 10 48 08 AM Screenshot 2023 09 02 at 10 48 20 AM Screenshot 2023 09 02 at 10 48 28 AM

Ordered the copy today. The cover needs to be sorted but great to see 120 pages of Moon Racket! loveliness coming together.

Alright. Found my Florida DIPA. Smooth, with the right amount of kick at the end.

Someone from Florida has to explain this to me. What’s the deal with the scales as you enter and leave a supermarket?

Been practicing my chess using the wonderful Chessmate. It’s like the iA Writer of chess games.

It’s photos like this that make me lament not having a better camera on me. I am ‘due’ an upgrade this year as I’m on an iPhone 11.

But weirdly I don’t give a shit about the app ecosystem anymore. What I actually care about is whether I can get the best camera. Is that an iPhone Pro or is it a Sony something something…

The Family Crest. My favourite ‘new’ band. A ‘new’ band being anything I discovered and loved post 1999.

Too much juice in the glazing. Top tip next time is drizzle it in slowly.

Sunday evening Pimms. Can totally get used to that.

Feeling inspired to revisit these characters. I’ve not drawn them in years.

Trying to explain the concept to the kids was fun.

Tuna samich on a ridiculously fresh baguette.

TCAF 2023. Soo packed. Can’t say it was an elegant experience (not that I was expecting one), but hoped for a little bit more…space. Having said that the Toronto Reference Library is a good venue, just too many people.

Cluny at the Distillery District. Wonderful ambiance. Food was decidedly meh. Post pandemic I am increasingly more critical about restaurant food.

Its taken a really long time but very nearly there with KAA-regular (and KAA-bold).

An advise / idea for comic artists: make your handwriting and font.
I created my own font family based in my handwriting, with the invaluable help of Type-ø-tones heroes Laura Meseguer and Josema Urós. Some of you had already spotted the typeface use in my comics and asked, so here’s your answer.

Wonderful post and idea. I would also add that you can do this yourself (I’m using ifontmaker on the iPad) but it takes time.

Something is very, very different with these beans. Good times ahead.

By far one of the most awesome displays at the match was the black and white flags from the Newcastle United fans.

The kids absolutely loved it. Zane as the mega fan was soo happy.

Actions Calendar 2023

This one is a little late but there is a story there.

I knew I needed to have something ready to go for this year. A way to track my No-S Diet and also how often I worked on all things Stet.Build. The aim being to rebuild habits that I developed several years ago and that have no fallen away from me because relocating your life to a whole new country is major disruption.

I did most of the design work, but then lost steam when I bought a bunch of calendars from Muji. My thought process was that I won’t need this particular calendar anymore. The Muji ones were more than enough. And yet I found out that they were not enough. They allow me to see the month, but this Actions Calendar gives me so much more information and appreciation of my goals across 12 months.

Available in 2 printer friendly configurations. The Letter edition (for all the North Americans) and the A4 edition (for the rest of the world?). I’ve included a small ‘manual’ in there to describe the design decisions behind the calendar.

I’m also using Gumroad to distribute all things digital come from the site.

Download 2023 Actions Calendar ➔

So I ended up buying Toot! This little detail highlighting interactions is wonderful. If you replied and if you got replies. I honestly can’t wait to see what the developer community creates in the social space over the coming years.

The new Sony Walkman music player looks amazing. Digital music has somewhat ruined my appreciation of albums. Maybe a dedicated player would help me on the road to recovery - music was always such a big part of my life, much less so for the last decade.

Some weird-ass sculptures here in Toronto. Ah-thank-you. I’m here all week.

It’s been soo damn long that something in the theatre space has gotten through to me, but this Elephant and Piggie play is right up my alley. The Mo Willems books have been a revalation. Zane does the reading, with Ryan following intently along. And they both can’t stop laughing.

Love the humour in the Civivi lifetime warranty.

First time out with the winter boots. Novelty I’m sure will wear off, but there is something serene walking around on fresh snow. Love the quiet crunch.

I totally procrastinated about getting a gooseneck kettle. Big mistake. Along with the scales an essential tool in your coffee making arsenal.

Gifts from our awesome new landlords. Amazing.

📚 Currently reading Craft Coffee: a Manual by Jessica Easto. I typically hate books on cooking (cooking via YouTube is game changing), but this page on coffee harvest times showed it was going to be an education.

The Stuart & Lau Cary Briefcase single is a real beauty. The only ding against it is that is leans on the larger side.

⚾️ Softball in the park. At some point it will feel normal, for now it feels incredibly quaint.

First burger in Toronto. Seriously excellent. Gonna definitely try all the different options.

Toronto does murals really well. Much more inviting than random rubbish graffiti.

Lamb burger topped with tzatziki, spinach, tomato & onions.

First purchase in Canada.
You do not go to The Beguiling and leave empty handed. No you do not.

Ryan’s attention to detail does not fail to surprise me, “Daddy, why is there a sign for girls, boys and grandmothers?”

Easily the most American thing I have ever seen 😂.

Form Factor

Since my digital detox from 2 years ago, I have been looking for a good source of ‘news’. Most news websites don’t offer the type of coverage that I crave and never in the form that I want it. I subscribed to The Economist for a few months but the regularity meant I could read nothing more. What I wanted was a dense version published less frequently that let me get into a specific topic more than superficially. Turns out form factor and package matters.

Yesterday we went to a bookstore. In this post pandemic world that is a novelty and something many members of the my family have not done. It wasn’t the largest bookstore I have been to but it was several orders bigger than anything in Copenhagen. I unabashedly fell in love. I could have spent the whole day there.

Because of our imminent move to Canada, I refrained from buying more than a single paperback tome of American Affairs, and with it I think I have found my source of ‘news’ and commentary in a vessel that I can absolutely get behind. Put together like a novel, the ‘magazine’ is 99.5% text (with the occasional graph or image). The articles are dense and let you delve into the subject. The paper is emasculate. The cover stock is sublime. The typography outstanding.

Best of all, it’s quarterly. One of the instant subscriptions when I get a permanent place in Canada.

Easily one of my favourite little packages this trip. It’s small. It’s memorable. And it’s a little bit of Americana in a pencil shaped tube.

Turned out really good. The ingredients in North America are a little different to what we got in Europe (which is to be expected). Spices are great. Coconut milk is great. Chicken is great. Water is not hard in this city either. It all adds up.

‘Florida Man’ IPA by Cigar City Brewing.

The clouds in Florida have been nothing short of spectacular. Coming from a pretty grey city like Copenhagen it’s strange to get excited about clouds (which were the enemy for years).

Being in the U.S. means you have to sample some of the things that are decidedly American. I decided to begin this journey with some American pencils from Musgrave.

Last night in a completely empty house. The boys channeling their inner Steve Jobs.

Dropped off the modem at the store then decided to take a short stroll back to work take in the Danish architecture.

Its not every day that two of my favourite interests are combined, watches and coffee. This Brew Watches Metric Retro has so many awesome details (beyond the coffee bean logo on the dial and case back). Only bad thing is the fact you can’t buy one right now.

Totally missed the Bellroy range of sling & cross-body bags. For years I have mainly relied on my Ona camera bag. While I like it, I know there is a better option. Can easily see myself with a couple of size options.

Several years in the making. Super excited to finally have some copies in my hand. Will go on sale next week.

Seems fitting to be leaving Canada while listening to the new Arcade Fire album.

Gonna miss this little guy, can’t see us needing/taking this to Toronto.

Issue 061 of my newsletter In Abeyance is now out. Been on a roll with the new format and schedule and have been enjoying the diversity of topics I’m covering.

First Greek style Xoriatiki I’ve ever made. 5 ingredients (flour, water, yeast, salt & olive oil). Baking it was different (in a pot and lid).

A follow-up on my presentation, another great indie typographer that I love and follow is Mika Melvas. Today he dropped a wonderful sans serif typeface, Nietos. I have used Melvas' work on Stet (notably when you sign up to the newsletter).

The full version of issue 053 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out, Extreme Environmental Design. This one was actually meant to be published in The Prepared newsletter (this one didn’t quite fit), but I really enjoyed how this came out.

🍿 Just finished watching Turning Red. We’ve not had a family movie in a good long while. This was excellent in that it was completely different to just about every Pixar movie before it, in the best possible way.

Issue 053 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out. No link to the issue yet (but you can sign up), because I am doing something a little bit different with how I publish things going forward (which I need to write about).

All the colour palettes I’ve used for my newsletter In Abeyance along with the latest colour for 2022.

BEC Vol.01 Available Now

You can grab a freshly minted copy of my first book the Built Environment Compendium Vol.01. If you are actively curious about the built environment, this book is for you.

I’ve written about how the idea behind Stet.Build came to me. I quickly set about developing the ideas on my study wall. Never shared this photo but easily one of my favourite exercises when brain storming. In the top right hand corner you can see the original sketch for what I wanted the covers to look like. Also its interesting to see my thoughts on pricing which have evolved since then.

The last year has been all about editing and polishing the script and thankfully had Mike Summers, who was the perfect editor, because he cares about the English languages and its nuances. He pushed and he prodded. He questioned and he commented. We did it all using Pages. Technology has evolved to remove incredible amounts of friction and this has been a perfect example of this. Right there baked into my phone and iPad.

Buy the digital edition of the BEC Vol.01

Creating a book for the digital age brings with it a different set of parameters to consider. The book cover is no longer a tall rectangle. Feeling good about the final book. Woo!

For prosperity. My Wordle stats for an entire month of play. Had created a bookmark on my Home Screen, which now doesn’t fully work because of the redirect to the New York Times website.

This weekend was centred around food. Cooked the kids souvlaki yesterday (home made pita, tzatziki and beefteki). A vegan sweet potato pie (which was excellent) and then topped off with an Aloo Gobi.

Issue 052 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out, ‘White Elephants’. This is the second from last major thing I wanted to get done this holiday. This is also the last issue that uses the orange colour as we move onto the lime green for 2022.

I’m not going to lie this thing turned out great. The secret (that I have somewhat avoided, unconsciously) is sesame oil in the chicken marinade. The only ingredient I was missing was some broccoli. Next time for sure.

As has become a bit of a tradition on this site, slightly new colour scheme for 2022. I’ve now settled on my sensible default backgrounds and in the future will look to only change the accent colours. For 2022 I’ve gone for lime green.

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

Every 2 years I crack open a new Nanami Cafe Note. 2021 has not been great year for the daily journaling practice. Am determined to rekindle this in 2022. Hobonichi calls their planners ‘Lifebooks’. Any book can have this title and everyone should have one.

Some baking just before Christmas. This thing turned out perfectly. Hats off to Chef Jack - the man has excellent taste in food.

Stet.Build v2.0

It has been years since I designed a completely new website. My toolbox of tricks has remained mostly the same - still using Skeleton, which I absolutely love. What has been fascinating is the scope a modern website now needs to serve. Now you have to effectively design four websites in one - desktop, tablet, mobile and dark mode.

Desktop

Version 2.0 of Stet.Build, which has seen very little love since it was launched 3 years ago, is a huge leap forward. I’m glad I took the time to make this the best it can be. I always recognised this was a major project and this has taken me around 6 months to complete (not full time of course).

The mock-ups were done in Affinity Designer - probably over a decade since I have used a vector app to design a website. For the most part I was able to replicate these. The annoying part was loosing some of the mock-ups half way through the design process due to some random name saving error. Top tip, save your work outside the Affinity system.

One of my favourite features of the new site, is the archive feature. A little bit of javascript and filtering the table like magic.

Mobile

When it came to the mobile version, I left it to serendipity and let the pieces fall. I could have spent a little time on this during the mockup stage, however I think that it worked out well in the end.

Dark Mode

This was (and remains) the biggest hurdle. This issue was that the individual artwork looked completely out of place in its native form with the bright white background. The only way around this is to recreate 51 drawings that are more suited to the darker background. This is going to be a work in progress as it is not a top priority - but will get to it all eventually. Issue 50 shows where I am heading with this.

Coding

Finished the mock ups months ago but needed the space (mentally) to dive into the coding. Certainly rusty, I leant into my constraints. My primary machine is my iPad Pro. I lost my MacBook a couple of years ago, and due to all the Apple laptop keyboard fiasco I never pressed the button. I began coding this on the iPad, but it really was an exercise in misery. Forget what they say, the iPad does not have the versatility for something like web production. Until Apple bring the Dev tools over with Safari, its all counterproductive.

The overall Blot system also made it super easy to work on the site while everything else was live. Probably the best setup for developing a website I have ever worked one. Local files that I save and see the impact direct on the site. Genius implementation.

A fun little logo I worked on last night for the upcoming Micro.blog baked-in newsletter for this site. I’ve been sitting on the kaa-pow name for a while (using it mainly as a username when kaa is not there).

Winter has truly arrived in Denmark. I will say that 2 years in, my body has become accustomed to the cold now - still truly hate the wind when it smacks in your face.

Got my Soundcore Q30s today and you can colour me super impressed. For 1/3 the price of what I paid for my Sony pair, 4 years ago, I get great sound, multiple device connectivity, ANC, an app with all the settings. Insane value. Now I just need the equivalent earbuds.

Sylvane was right. It is pretty easy to make good Asian food. You just need a great teacher (Chef Jack is the man to follow).

My coffee education continues. This time at Impact Roasters, an Ethiopian micro-roaster 10 min from my house…wait what? Kinda annoyed I only found out about this now, but also it is good timing because I can now hopefully appreciate it all the more.

First time I carve a pumpkin. Happy Halloween everyone.

🍳 Chef Jack Ovens has become an staple in my house. I love his videos because they are incredibly instructional. This creamy Thai soup transported me to my happy place. I replaced a couple of ingredients (no bean sprouts in the supermarket). Asian comfort food on a Sunday evening.

When you are currently lost for words, might as well upload photos.

After raining all week we finally got some blue skies and a bit of sun. Shame about the wind.

What was meant to be a glorious day out began in abject disaster. A flat tyre. Apparently pretty common on new Babboe bikes as they put thin puncture prone tyres by default. Soo stupid.

Issue 050 of my newsletter In Abeyance is now out. Special issue as it doesn’t dive into a specific topic, rather it provides a loose taxonomy of the built environment and categorises all the articles so far within this taxonomy.

🚲 I believe this makes us officially Danish (even though it’s a Dutch product).

Issue 049 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out, and focuses on biomimicry. This one was harder to write and finish - probably because I have not regained my rhythm since my whole iPad debacle. I also experimented a little bit, veering more on opinion than just facts and analysis.

I have really come to appreciate the Mikkeller brand of beer. Pricey but buttery smooth.

First day of school for Zane. He was so excited to get there and be part of this new world. His younger brother is certainly feeling the absence but as with all things he will learn to get used to it. On the positive he gains more attention from myself and Yasmine.

Issue 048 of In Abeyance is out. This issue is late, a first in the 2½ years of publishing. It’s hard to write when your main and then your backup work machines both fail. This knocked my writing, researching and publishing rhythm off its axis. So I took a month off. This month its all about nuclear power, Olympic beds and Muji horology.

It took me a year and a half of working at home before I decided to invest bigly in a screen for my desk. Learning from my previous mistake of not buying the largest television screen available (some 6 years ago), I decided to go all out with my latest purchase, the AOC U32P2, a name that flows of the tongue I know. The real estate is incredible. I’m reminded of this classic photo of Steve Jobs in his office. When I first saw it I thought, ‘Don’t care much for everything in this office, but what an incredible size for a screen’.

It’s been nearly 2 years without MacOS. iOS has served me reasonably well, although somethings should not be this difficult to do. More importantly my machine is in the shop to get fixed (again!). Brings me to Windows 11. Throughout all of this Windows has remained my work machine. This update looks to make my daily experience that much better.

Started working on a typeface based on my handwriting 2 years ago. Its not baked yet - because it really isn’t a priority - but it was fun to remind myself where it stands right now.

The new ‘Reading Ruler’ setting on the Kindle app is a subtle but wonderful addition to a reading app. Wish web browsers had this feature.

Slowly been amassing this beautiful range of freely available printed material across a wide range of subjects.

Issue 047 of In Abeyance is out. This issue is about Brutalism, a subject with seemingly infinite avenues to explore. Also in this issue, Art Gensler and Dieter Rams.

Not sure how this happened, but apparently I have read on my kindle every single week for a little over a year now. This is the kind of metric tracking that I can really get behind - until a couple of weeks ago I had no idea this feature existed. Looking through the log, there were a couple of weeks where I read only once. In fact the 17 day streak is a far cry from my longest streak of 89 consecutive days. That is now clearly in my crosshairs.

So been looking for some Middle Eastern ingredients (you won’t find much of this stuff at the plethora of local supermarkets). This little shop has saved the day. Pomegranate molasses! Zaatar! Foul Memdamas!

Pre-order the Built Environment Compendium Vol.1

When I set to work on Stet.Build, I knew that this was a longterm project. That the many pieces that I was putting in place would not really find their complete form until many years later.

Now three years later I am edging closer and can finally share some of the very original ideas that got me excited so long ago. The very first book, the Built Environment Compendium Vol.1 is complete and is now ready for pre-ordering. I am still in conversations with my editor for final edits to the text, which should hopefully be done within the month.

This is the first time I use Gumroad and I am actually pretty excited to see what this platform has to offer to digital content creators. Overall I like the simplicity of the platform.

Spring has finally sprung in Denmark. It feels completely overdue but totally welcome.

Can’t wait for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the other networks to send me some stickers and a handwritten card. Aaaaannny minute now I’m sure. Not that I needed a reason to be on Micro.blog. A wonderful reminder that you are dealing with real people. Thanks @jean and @manton

It’s been years since I worked on a website design in vector format (why waste my time when I can just code what is in my head). This one is different and needs a little more care and attention.

Been wanting a photo that I can use online for a while now. Thanks to my wife and a lot of patience, have a few that don’t suck.

Issue 046 of In Abeyance is out. This issue is about Shipping Container Architecture. Also features The Ocean Cleanup, Prometheus Fuels, Michael Sorkin and the Ferrule.

This issue is a little late, but I’ve been a little preoccupied with life recently. Had a lot of fun creating the artwork this time.

🧩 Puzzle time with the kids. Was never a puzzle fan, but there is therapy in a 200 piece.

Park bench & journal on a crisp unlocking day. Spring is nearly here.

So finally got an upgrade to my Swatch. While I do love that little thing, this watch from Vaer encapsulates what I have been looking for in an everyday watch. Have a longer thing to write (or maybe even talk about) soon. The tldr: its an excellent upgrade to a Timex Expedition.

I had this idea nearly a year ago. I tinkered with something on this last year. Today I finally finished my first Concise Guide. Really looking forward to sharing these with everyone.

Hoping to finishing the book this Easter weekend. Release is on target for end of May.

Issue 045 of In Abeyance is out. This issue is about Seismic Design. Also features Vortex Bladeless & Field Notes Brand.

One of the joys about spending a little longer researching and writing each article is that I get to dive in a little deeper. Get to discover a little more. Sometimes I am genuinely surprised by where the journey takes me.

It is all a little behind schedule, but it is getting very real now. Polish, polish, polish.

Issue 044 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out.This issue focuses on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, architectural practice Snøhetta and urban maps.

With this issue I am reverting back to my monthly schedule again in releasing the newsletter. Part of the struggle I have had is that I actually enjoy the researching and writing something that is a little longer form than what the bi-monthly schedule allowed.

I have decided to use Twitter in a different manner than I have previously. The idea is to share links, videos, images of the research that goes into each and every issue, as I am writing the issue. I’ll also be collecting these against a hashtag that is not being widely used. This means that in the future after you have read a specific issue you can jump onto the Twitter hashtag as a companion stream that allows you explore a topic in a different way that my 1500 word essays do.

I know this site is turning into a food log at the moment but when you dare to experiment and create, you should celebrate these small wins. My hand at some udon noodle soup.

Garlic Lemon Chicken Greek style. I have Akis to thank for this. Just reminded me of what was always readily available around me growing up. If you want to get excited about cooking Greek food, highly recommend his channel (although he does sometimes go heavy on the olive oil).

Issue 043 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out. This issue considers carbon capture and sequestration.

This issue was surprisingly easier to write than a lot of them in the recent past. I attribute it to the fact that Having decided what I want to write about throughout the year means that I get a bit of time to let the ideas develop.

Just really like the way this hippo is looking at me.

The first issue In Abeyance for 2021 is now out. Issue 042 is now out. The issue looks ferrock, Neom’s The Line, ACME Studio’s architecture line and more. I also spent some time updating the design of the email slightly. As always you can sign up here.

First chocolate chip cookies. These things turned out perfect. Crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.

Very first attempt at a snowman in probably over 20 years. Will make an even better one next time.

For prosperity, those sweet potato buns are on point.

Issue 041 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out. This is the last issue of 2020 and volume 2, the purple volume. In this issue, house of the present, AuReus, circular economy and architectural watering cans.

As alway you can sign up and receive it direct in you inbox.

As has become a bit of a tradition on this site, new colour scheme for 2021.

2019

2020

2021

First copy of the Built Environment Compendium Vol.1. 2 ½ years in the making.

I’m still mulling over the quality of the printing (via Lulu). The cover colours didn’t come out anywhere near what I am looking for but still a physical thing in this world is always a good time.

Certainly not a protectionist view (I’ve never been to Estonia) and I feel patriotic for the nation that has accepted me during that period of my life, but it is nice to see anything other than the ‘Made in China’ stamp.

So we are not able to go to a bar, so we had the bar sent to us. Great evening of making 3 cocktails and I have all the gear to do more in the future! Now just need to get that alcohol smell from my desk….

Issue 040 of my email newsletter, In Abeyance is now out.

Always feels good to get an issue done. Most times I have no idea what I am going to write about until a week before it needs to go out and there is some frantic searching and banging my head against the wall for a few days. I might even get a little grumpy. This is the 23rd issue of the year and what a year it has been. Next issue is the last for the year.

From my introduction:

As a child one of my deepest fears was that of loosing my eyesight. Something about living such a life filled me first with sorrow and dread. With age that point of view transformed into admiration and respect. Throughout my life I have not had any real interaction with anyone that is visually impaired or blind. One of the only real interaction that I have had is those elements present in the built environment meant to cater to the blind. These elements have become more noticeable to me since moving to Copenhagen last year and were the clear inspiration for this week’s issue.

If you are curious about the built environment I urge you to sign up, best email on the subject you will get roughly published every two weeks — I’m trying to resolve my publishing schedule so that I can get rid of the roughly part of that sentence.

I honestly didn’t know that this was missing from my life, Korean-style egg sandwich with cheese and jam. Whhhaaaatt? It really works. Sunday mornings got transformed a little.

Issue 039 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out, The Shinkansen. This is one of those topics that practically wrote itself. I could have easily written two or three times as much. An incredibly rich topic and one I hope to expand upon in the future.

30 day photo challenge complete (only showing 27 here). Will be good to post in colour again.

Issue 038 of my newsletter In Abeyance is out. This one covers one of my favourite architectural and art movements, the Art Nouveau.