The year in review: 2025

7 min read Dec 21, 2025

This year has been return to the routines that once defined how I lived my life, to work that fits the way I see the world, and to a clearer sense of what deserves my attention.

Running again

Running became a central part of my life. I was quite serious about it till I let a tiny injury and the busyness of startup life become the excuses to give up running. Years later as COVID began to subside, I laced up my shoes and made running a big part of my life again.

This year’s milestone was running the New York City Marathon. While I didn’t race it all-out, I ran deliberately, finishing strong with plenty left in the tank. I was happy with my result, and I enjoyed the course along the way.

I was lucky to get in via the lottery and lucky again to get into next year’s Chicago Marathon. It’s yet another reason to keep up my running habit.

None of this happened without help. Training for the marathon took six to eight hours a week — time that was made possible by others. My in-laws lived with us for four months, taking on childcare, cooking, laundry, and the other invisible logistics that make life run. Of course, their presence most importantly helped our home feel alive and full of love.

My wife and kids also absorbed some of the cost, adjusting their schedules to accommodate my multi-hour Sunday long runs.

Work, reshaped

After a year away, I returned to work and joined Miter as their first designer. Following together’s rebrand of our external-facing materials, I executed a full redesign of the Miter web app, revamping our visual design, restructuring every page, and writing the code required to completely overhaul the four-year-old app. Along the way, I established a new product language on a newer foundation, introducing new iconography, Tailwind CSS and Radix UI.

Over time, that role evolved into something better suiting my skills — design engineer. The shift wasn’t automatic, and it wasn’t easy, but it was supported by co-founder and CEO, Connor, product manager, Anuraag, and all the other engineers and product folks.

This year helped me realize I’m happiest when I’m working on systems that blend aesthetics with technical complexity.

Creating mental space

One of the quietest yet most consequential changes this year was learning how to protect my attention. I installed the Freedom app on my devices, removing social media, news, and other things that were scrambling my brain. What remained was clarity — more presence with my wife and kids, more depth in my work, and a noticeable reduction in cognitive noise.

Kanazawa, Japan · Leica CL · 56mm · f/5 · 1/200 · ISO 100

The blog

I managed to find time to write nearly two dozen posts on the blog this year. Photo essays made up the bulk of them with a mix of personal projects and design-focused pieces as well.

Three most-viewed articles

The creative power of constraints

This post is just the tip of the spear of a topic I’ve been obsessed with most of my adult life — how do we set the conditions for creativity?

My DIY modular charging station

I built a USB charging station around modularity and natural materials.

Meishi: a tiny productivity system

This credit card-sized paper system still keeps me focused and productive.

Personal projects

Meishi: a tiny productivity system

This credit card-sized paper system still keeps me focused and productive.

Designing wearable tech history

T-shirts have become a new creative outlet for the various ideas bouncing around in my head.

My DIY modular charging station

I built a USB charging station around modularity and natural materials.

Hello, Liquid Glass

This wallpaper takes inspiration from Apple’s liquid glass and the classic cursive “hello” from the Mac.

Design

The hidden bond between the Porsche 911 and Leica M

The more I learned about the Porsche 911 and the Leica M, the more I realized that they both take a very similar approach to create beautiful, timeless products.

Sigma BF: less camera, more vision

I took a design deep dive into Sigma’s jaw-dropping camera and how it applies Japanese aesthetic traditions to modern technology.

The creative power of constraints

This post is just the tip of the spear of a topic I’ve been obsessed with most of my adult life — how do we set the conditions for creativity?

Aesthetics over upgrades

This is a love letter to my favorite Apple products that I use every day, most of which are several years old and now discontinued.

Photo essays

Hidden Taiwan: A weekend in Taoyuan & Yingge

Signing up for a half-marathon on a whim led me to discovering Taiwan’s industrial heartland and a ceramics district.

Taipei through the layers of time

This is a look at various historical buildings and creative hubs I’ve visited over my many visits to Taipei over the years.

Suzhou twenty years later

Two decades after a formative trip to Suzhou, China, I returned with my children and saw it anew.

Photowalk through Shanghai

A five-hour solo walk through Shanghai revealed hidden shops, restored historic buildings, and the creative chaos that makes this city unforgettable.

Family adventures in Tokyo

This is a rundown of my absolute favorite family-friendly attractions in and around Tokyo.

Mexico City’s embrace of culture

This piece explores how Mexico has a unique approach towards weaving their diverse culture into public life.

Milwaukee’s many faces

A rustbelt city that I otherwise would have ignored reveals a place that continues to reinvent itself and build upon its already diverse identity.

Charleston’s historic fabric

I learned how some places serve as time capsules and preserve traces of history both consequential and regretful.

Creative Savannah

I expected another time capsule, but found yet another city that is reinventing itself and making a new name for itself.

Miscellaneous

My year-long sabbatical

Both my wife and I quit our jobs, burned through savings, and faced uncertainty. At the end, we found the space to clarify what truly matters to us.

I celebrated five years of writing this newsletter, an experience that started as a way to find connection beyond comments and became a way to reveal how my ideas interconnect over time.

The newsletter has continued to function as a more private space to think and connect with others. This year’s themes shifted away from design and toward the inner workings of my mind.

More and worse

An exploration into how certain products frustrate users by trying to do too much, sacrificing quality in the process.

Attention is everything

This piece examines how attention has become the central currency of our time and how I think directing our attention is one of our most important daily decisions.

Approach with curiosity

Through examples across the art and design world and my personal experience, I remember how curiosity often leads to the best solutions.

Emphasis

This expands on the idea that “if your product is for everybody, it’s for nobody”. Emphasis is one of the most important aspects of design.

Write this post without AI

After struggling with my essay about constraints and creativity, I used AI to write some small portions of my post and got called out by respected blogger Gwern. An email thread with him helped me realize that I’d broken one of my own rules.

Highly processed information

After returning from a trip to Japan with a clear mind, I quickly lost that mental clarity. I realized it hadn’t come from vacation, but from being cut off from my usual media diet.

Less really is more

The creative process is a transformation where inputs become outputs and “garbage in, garbage out”.

The missing piece in voice

I make the case that voice assistants won’t reach their transformative potential until they achieve safety in privacy, security and control.

If you have to say it, it isn’t true

Great products speak for themselves while inferior ones compensate with loud claims.

Default dead

This story takes the startup concept of being “default dead” — assuming failure upfront — and applies it to life. This mindset helps me shake off fear and creates freedom.

Heroes behind the heroes

After four marathons focused on personal records and proving my own abilities, I approached the New York City Marathon this year wanting to enjoy the experience. In the process, I discovered gratitude for the countless people who brought me there and made the experience possible.

Thank you, 2025

2025 has been nothing but great. Thank you, readers, friends, and family for continuing to support my work here on this site and the newsletter. I hope you all find the time to rest, recover, and connect with those you love.

San Francisco, California · Leica CL · 56mm · f/3.5 · 1/160 · ISO 6400

Thanks to Q for reading drafts of this.