Welcome to this blog/email/newsletter/exercise in shouting out into the abyss and seeing what rebounds back.
It’s been a wild year for me, filled with traversing countries, changing careers and my relationships with people morphing and changing.
And with all of that, it’s never felt like a better time for me to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and start sending out my thoughts into the world.
What is the purpose of what you’re reading? Well, in some ways it’s just a relief for my selfish ego. A holding place for all the weird random ideas and influences that I'm absorbing at the moment.
For now, as I find my feet, expect some rambly nonsense about monsters, weird music and design. Hopefully it’ll evolve into something useful for you.
Please enjoy.
You probably want to know who I am, too.
I’m Sean. I write and design.
I’ve been on a mission for the past two years to evolve out of corporate dronedom and realise a life where I can live to pursue my creative passions while making a difference in the world. I’m currently progressing towards a career in Content Design, but as you’ll see, my interests expand from writing and design to music, art and a host of other random things.
So let’s dive in! What’s on my mind this week?
Design
I'll be dedicating the first block of this to one of my greatest passions (“design is my passion” har, har): understanding people and creating things of value to the world. That's what design is to me.
Today I'd like to highlight a couple of cool tools that are speeding up something that to me has always been a daunting hill to overcome: web design.
Web design, especially when learning in the early stages of your career, always had a bit of intangibility embedded in it. Sure, you've made a lovely prototype for that website, but where are you going to find that developer to get it up and running? Or are you going to work that out yourself?
And well, I've tried that too. With Webflow in particular, I've tried tutorial after tutorial to feel even remotely capable, but there's always that barrier just stopping me from taking it to that next step.
But now those barriers are falling.
Framer is the best tool I’ve come across that translates essentially the same, familiar Figma interface into something that can become a live working website in minutes. And sure, there's the quick Framer AI tool included that can ChatGPT out a website in seconds, which can be helpful when you're stuck, but I feel the true strength of Framer is the elegant and simple translation it has made for designers to web development.
I'm a huge fan of tools that democratise, well, any skills. So Framer gets a big thumbs up in my book. Expect me to be tinkering away with this moving forward.
Writing
In the world of AI-written ChatGPT-smelling content everywhere, Smallish Book is the most refreshing piece of writing I've recently come across on the internet (I'm still not a premium sub though, dirty me!).
As someone who writes for a living, I can only marvel at the cadence and metaphors of the sentences that Chelsea and V Sri express to the world. And that's not even talking about the insightful, emotive bits of guidance in the world of Content Design and UX Writing they provide.
I admire this so much. If I could write half as good as this, I'd be very, very happy.
Film
Despite how I look and my ultra-generic name, I'm actually half-Filipino.
After spending a sweltering but rewarding three months in the Philippines with my family, I've finally started delving into many, many pieces of Filipino culture I never really had much interest in when I was younger. Trying to "find my identity” before I'm 30, I suppose.
This includes Filipino film. My impression was that they were always overdramatic romcoms interspersed with repetitive shampoo ads (that's what Filipino television told younger me), but in reality there are some incredible films coming out of the country that don't really get enough light in the Western world.
The most interesting to me were the historical dramas. I've fostered a deep sense of pride in the Philippines after understanding its jagged history of continually being conquered and Filipino people, even now, still struggling to find themselves and their identity.
Heneral Luna always comes to the top of people's lists when the internet discusses these and man, did it deliver. Set during the American-Filipino War, an important chapter the Philippines, and the rest of the world, should never forget, it tells the story of how the namesake General Luna's unbridled patriotism, admirable as it is, ultimately leads to his downfall.
For anyone a little bit curious about the Philippines, I highly recommend.
Music
Me and my friends recently went to a little karaoke booth in Melbourne and I was reminded of how awesome Call Me Maybe was as a song. And then I was reminded of I Really Like You, a soundtrack to relationships filled with feelings but unable to commit to the words “I love you.”
And then I realised, Carly has albums coming out to this day, and they're still absolute bangers. Check out The Loveliest Time, groove out to Psychedelic Switch and thank me later.
Hobbies
Trading card games have for a long time been an integral part of my life.
From playing Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and the most perfect card game, Duel Masters, unsleeved on concrete floors in primary school, to levelling up to playing Magic: the Gathering in high school and university, pieces of cardboard with monsters printed on them have been a continuous thread throughout my life.
I have journeyed across the world for these games. I have made some of my most treasured friends through them. I have written countless words and podcasted about a niche format of Magic.
I love trading card games.
That being said, the current landscape of trading card games is very, very different to what it used to be. Although the game I held most steadfast to, Magic, still exists, the gameplay and current approach to card design has withered away the tactical aspects I enjoyed about the game in the past. It just doesn’t hit the spot anymore.
So I’ve been searching for a new game to play. And that’s when a friend introduced me to the Digimon Card Game.
Digimon hit an unparalleled emotional high for me, injecting my system with a perfect concoction of nostalgia from both the gameplay and the franchise itself.
Gameplay-wise, like many Japanese card games, the Digimon Card Game takes a lot of inspiration from my original card game love, Duel Masters, in how it manages life total and combat. But the true genius of the game comes from the Memory system, which removes any mana system that other games have to abide by. It gives the game a feeling of fluidity and freedom that is often lost on other card games.
And the Digimon franchise itself. This game made me remember that I was not a Pokemon kid, I was definitely a Digimon kid. Digimon Adventure still holds up incredibly well and the Mamoru Hosoda-directed pilot episode and Our War Game are not just great pieces of Digimon media, but anime in general.
To Butterfly, I cry every time.
Hopefully you enjoyed a meander through my world! I’ll be aiming to bring these to you each week so please subscribe to get them direct to your inbox.
I’ll be finishing each week with a recent piece of work I’m particularly happy with. For this week I’ve been experimenting with Stable Diffusion’s (thank goodness you can now run on Mac) ControlNet features to actualise my sketches.
And lastly, a quote for you.
“The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.”
— Seth Godin
Just came across this post, Sean. Much gratitude for the kind words about Smallish and for your words about writing and design.