Buzzin’ down California

A week down the California coast in an electric van that made us stop every couple hundred miles — and the places we found because of it.

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Do you want to go for a ride?

The 747 shaped how I understood distance, family, and wonder. As it disappears from the skies, I'm trying to figure out what to hand my son instead.

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Yunnan V · Land of Wilderness

A photographic journey through the design principles of a whimsical wonderland.

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Design Ah! books

XX

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Good bye, Om Malik

I admired Om Malik and his writing for my entire adult life, then had the fortune of knowing him. A remembrance of a friend, mentor, critic, and guide.

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Japanese symbols that speak without words

I look at the Japanese symbols that carry meaning entirely on their own.

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How Japan's railways stayed one while splitting apart

When Japan broke up its national railway in 1987, the new companies agreed on one thing to keep the same.

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Introducing Daily Designer

Today I'm introducing a new project called Daily Designer with daily quotes from designers I admire.

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Why the Ferrari Luce looks like that

Everyone may be dunking on the Ferrari Luce, but I'm not sure it would have ended any other way.

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Yunnan IV · Lijiang

A week in Lijiang — ancient towns, medicinal hot pot, and architecture that looks more like Tibet than China.

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Love Hultén Works

Spend enough time with Love Hultén's work and you start to feel like you're mapping an alternate world — one built from wood, electronics, and a very particular kind of whimsy.

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Japan's invisible electric wall

Japan's power grid has a fracture running through it that no one has ever fully repaired. East and west run on different frequencies.

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Yunnan III · Dali

Dali in Yunnan may be the best place I've ever visited — better than the Mediterranean or Southeast Asia. Here's why almost no one in the Western world knows it exists.

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When the cheap one is the cool one

Apple and Porsche both figured out the same secret that the cheapest product in the lineup can be the most exciting. It just takes a little intention.

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A love letter to the Leica CL

I fell in love with a camera Leica discontinued. Four years later, it's still in my bag — and nothing has come close to replacing it.

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Yunnan II · Kunming

Kunming was the best first impression of Yunnan with its mild weather, delicious food, and rich history.

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Naoto Fukasawa’s without thought catalogs

A look at the without thought workshop catalogs by Naoto Fukasawa and how observation is so important to design.

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Yunnan I · Homebase, Shanghai

Shanghai is my home base in China — and this time, I finally figured out why. A few days, a handful of places, and a tension I didn't expect to find running through all of them.

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On running: principles and gear

A pre-dawn run through Lijiang's old town, and the gear, principles, and philosophy behind how I train.

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Introducing arun.is 3.0

How I turned four years of incremental improvements into something focused and coherent.

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Kanazawa IV · An interlude in Tokyo

After a week in Kanazawa, we returned to Tokyo, the city in Japan I know best.

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Kanazawa III · The old

How the actions of the ruling clan in Kanazawa centuries ago lead to it surviving WWII.

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Kanazawa II · The new

Why did a mid-sized city on the Sea of Japan become a place where contemporary culture flourishes alongside five centuries of tradition?

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Kanazawa I · On the way

A Ferrari designer's train delivered us to a city where Pritzker Prize architecture coexists with centuries-old samurai districts. We had no idea what we were in for.

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The year in review: 2025

This year has been a return to the routines that once defined how I lived my life

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