Designing with Vignelli's Rules
Massimo Vignelli spent sixty years proving you need a grid, a handful of typefaces and a lot of discipline. What that looks like when the page is a browser window.
The design notebook · Note 2 ↗EXPLORE THE NOTEBOOK
Projects.
Things I'm making, documented one update at a time.
22published notes
Every note in Projects
Newest first · 2 / 2The '90s Computer-Ad Look, Without Faking an Operating System
How this site borrows the warmth of early-'90s Apple ads (editorial type, cream paper, slate ink) and why the fake menu bars and little beige Mac didn't make the cut.
The design notebook · Note 1 ↗A Recipe Card That Prints on One Page
Hitting print on a recipe blog usually gets you five pages of sidebar. Here's how the recipes on this site print just the card, and why visibility:hidden was the wrong first try.
Building this notebook · Note 6 ↗Backlinks and a "Short Version" Box in Eleventy, No Plugins
A summary box, an "In this note" list, labelled callouts and a "Linked from" section, all built with a handful of Eleventy filters and some honest string matching.
Building this notebook · Note 5 ↗Deckport: Getting Native Linux Games Onto the Steam Deck Without the Busywork
Deckport is my open-source Python tool that registers portable native Linux games as Steam Deck non-Steam shortcuts, with artwork, so they show up in Game Mode ready to play.
Games and gear · Note 3 ↗WeatherStar 4000: The '90s Weather Channel on a Raspberry Pi
My open-source Python and pygame recreation of the WeatherStar 4000, built for Raspberry Pi and CRT TVs, with live weather data and 26-plus display modes.
The retro workbench · Note 2 ↗Rebuilding This Notebook
101 old posts, three versions of a design, and one very specific idea about what a personal website should feel like.
Building this notebook · Note 1 ↗Your Fonts Only Look Right on Your Computer
The site looked perfect on my machine and wrong everywhere else. The sneaky reason, and how to self-host web fonts properly.
Building this notebook · Note 3 ↗Logo Design for Venable Cares at Venable Elementary School
I recently worked on a design project for Venable Cares at Venable Elementary School in Charlottesville, VA. My contribution included creating the logo for Venable Cares. The logo design…
Past IT Projects
A decade-plus of Windows migrations, endpoint security, and infrastructure work, boiled down to what I did and how big it was.