In the latest Pepsi shareholder meeting, a couple of days ago, every meaningful thing got voted down. Even sustainable packaging. This is a systemic problem with public companies: profit over purpose.
I truly enjoyed listening to Jony Ive at the Stripe talks, especially his points against disruption for the sake of disruption. We need more humanists in a time when the loudest voices seem to come from technologists.
The internet is getting tiring. I kind of miss times when I was only allowed to use it 30min a day.
Figma’s is doing what many companies do right before they become shitty. No focus, many products, internal fights for budget, and parts of the portfolio on maintenance mode after failing to pick up decent usage numbers.
I can’t remember the source, but I love this statement I noted down today: “The internet is full of people selling maps to mountains they’ve never climbed”. Right?
It was Caterina’s birthday and after all these years we went back to the Flying Market for lunch. It was nice, but it wasn’t like it used to be; food is average, prices are high.
Today, while drinking Oatly Bento said he likes this milk: “Bento gosta desse leite.”
At some point the economy will be all about AI companies, with zero employees, selling stuff to unemployed consumers who can’t afford crap. When that day comes, I hope we get some sort of UBI to stay away from it, chill at the beach, and read a good book.
We went to a Thai food festival with Pedro and Ana. The weather was great. The food wasn’t, though.
When the weather gets better, Hamburg starts smelling like pee. It kind of follows you around.
From Duke Ellington to Django Reinhardt, I enjoy most Jazz styles, but my preference still leans toward mellow, melancholic, and introspective tunes. Those that are best enjoyed late at night, maybe well after midnight. Alone, with your thoughts and maybe a glass of whisky. Just like Blue in Green.
I was about 17 when I first got into jazz. I remember going to Tenerife on vacations with my parents and bringing my Sony Discman, a pair of portable speakers, and the first two jazz albums I ever bought: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and Blue Train by John Coltrane. In the evenings, after dinner, I would stay in my room drawing and listen to Blue in Green on repeat.
We spent the entire Sunday outside. The marathon change our plans a little, but we still managed to go to the African food festival. I got a bit sunburned on my head. It’s not even May yet, and it wasn’t even that hot – I was wearing my winter jacket!
“As we feel the hot breath of techno-fascism on our necks, we may find it liberating to limit our exposure to phones and return to the calm, surveillance-free zone of printed books. In recapitulating the history of reading, we might begin to reimagine a society where software serves humans instead of the other way round.” – Marty Neumeier.
My Apple Pencil cooked in the oven. Maybe a consequence of working from home. Everything becomes office. Even the kitchen. Even the oven.
For me, the most regrettable aspect of these AI memes is that the overexposure dilutes and degrades the experience of someone experiencing the original source, especially if for the first time. Yes, the narrative is much more important, but the intrinsic value of the art itself becomes less meaningful when everything can look like the unique anime styles of Katsuhiro Otomo**,** Akira Toriyama or in this case Miyazaki.
Bento has been waking up, shouting "Pato Donó" (Donald Duck).
Lately, I have been reading Creative Endurance. I am not finished yet, but I am really enjoying it. It's full of personal stories, tips, and insights to help you be more resilient in the pursuit of good ideas.
It’s crazy how much more energy Kids have. Maybe not the amount of energy, but the intensity with which they use it.
Today is Easter Sunday, and we went on a hunt for chocolate eggs. Bento nearly caught us when Caterina threw the first one to the floor. But I think he believed it, or at least went along with it. He also found a dinosaur egg.
One of the things I always like to keep present when working on branding projects is how competitors show up. What they say and what they look like helps identifying opportunities for differentiation. The Ad Library from Meta is really helpful for this.
We visited Flo after a few months of not seeing them. It was good to spend a day with good friends. Bento also had fun being around Barnie.
I guess getting old, most of us become some sort of a broken record.
In job applications, I really prefer a pdf over a website. I like websites if I want to see more depth; sometimes there’s no worse experience than clicking my way through poorly designed sites.
It’s disturbing how triggered Sam Altman gets when he realizes people really care about intellectual property. After the audience applauded Chris Anderson's observation that the Peanuts-generated image looked like IP theft, Sam Altman said, “You can clap about that all you want. Enjoy.”
A designers approach approach to taste is not so different from what GenAI image models have been doing, especially the most tasteful ones. Midjourney, for example, throws "rating parties" in order to steer its models towards a general consensus of what looks good. Users are presented with pairs of images and asked to select their preferred one or skip to the next pair. A distillation of taste at scale.
I took Bento to the park and it started raining almost immediately after we left home. We took shelter under some trees and ate ice cream.
Today, we spent most of the day outside. From 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening. We checked out some flooring, visited playgrounds, a music school party, a wildlife museum.
Jake Dorsey is now calling for the end of IP. I get that everyone benefits a little from AI. Not to the extent of those creating the models, but definitely much more than the creators whose work unwillingly ended up on the training datasets. Wouldn’t the end of trademarks, copyrights and patents just kill any incentives to innovation?
I don’t feel good today. Anxiety is kicking in. I always feel like this in situations where time is limited, but pressure keeps pilling.
Trump must be the dumbest person alive. I can’t find a good reason why crashing the whole economy would benefit the US.
Can someone please fast forward to 2029? I feel like most of my adult life has been an unhealthy mixture of recessions, economic crisis, pandemics and wars. I need a break.
Personio dropped a brand with personality for something that looks like everyone else in tech. Maybe not the right move.
So, Sam Altman believes rights holders should not be able to stop their work from being used by artificial intelligence. It seems like even opt-in/out is no longer enough for these guys. Give me all your stuff and money.
Bento was beyond happy to be at a swimming pool full of dinosaurs. Maybe a bit too excited. I couldn’t stay still for even 1 minute.
I expected the future to be more like Star Trek. Full of abundance, time, and automation. With cheap or free resources. Instead we get a future full of inequalities, and with a labor market squeezed by billionaire companies, on top of hyperinflation caused by wars and tariffs.
I really dislike trends and following trends. Especially memes, or worse, AI memes. It is lazy and it doesn’t create anything of value.
Portugal doesn’t seem to have left a situation of recession since 2001. Punch after punch after punch. That’s why we left. Ignoring the situation didn’t make it better. But even elsewhere, there’s hasn’t been normalcy for a very long while.
So, the whole Ghibli meme thing was all about securing an extra 40 billion dollars funding for OpenAI? They previously did the same with Sora: generate hype before the funding round closes.
I’ve used an in-browser note-taking app that I built every day. Now I’m listening to my podcasts via a podcast directory that I put together. It feels good.
Doing my first experiences with databases and dynamic sites. Started with Airtable, but now wondering if I should have used Supabase instead.
Will the fast-foodification of good looking pictures make us me feel nothing when confronted with real art?
This is what really sucks. If this is the end of copyright, then let it be for everyone. Not only for the billionaires: “On that front, judges recently dealt tech companies a blow, ruling in favor of Thomson Reuters that a pre-ChatGPT Al system was creating images that competed with the original material, and thus was not in fact fair use. OpenAl and Google, meanwhile, are desperately trying to win this battle, appealing to the Trump administration directly, and going so far as to argue that if they're not allowed to ingest copyrighted works into their training data, China will beat the US in Al.”
This is such a nice visual metaphor for LLMs. For an upcoming book from Dwarkesh Patel. The Stripe design team is really good.
Capitalism in 2025: An artist's carefully crafted style and work gets stolen and turned into a mass-market on-demand filter for the enrichment of already rich people.
It was good to see everyone at work. I really enjoyed seeing marketing people so engaged with customer interviews. And the dinner with the design gang was a definite highlight.
On the train to Offenburg. I will stay only 2 days, but I’m already missing my kid.
Bento loves his grandmother. They used to speak everyday, but now she decided to stop answering the phone when he calls. It’s been a month. I hate it.
I asked Bento if he wanted ketchup. He replied, “Bento, Mayo Rot não,” which translates to "Bento doesn't want red mayonnaise."
I don't get why people use ChatGPT for text messages, emails, or even cover-letters. I guess they think it makes them sound smarter. But it just makes them sound soulless.
As my father grew older and sicker, whenever we were together, I found myself trying to micromanage his unwillingness to take his medication and his poor eating habits, as if you could possibly change a stubborn old person. I feel guilty because I did that instead of enjoying our final moments together. But at the same time, I feel guilty for not being able to fix him. Maybe if had been more persistent… Time heals everything, I hope.
On the topic of purpose, many times I think about something that the grandmother of the author Saramago, who lived alone with her animals in the countryside, reportedly said: “The world is so beautiful, and I’m so sad about dying.” I'm sure she found her Ikigai.
Recently, Nuevo Tokyo in collaboration with Héliographe, they released AgBr, a new application for black and white film simulations. I really really like it. It is simple to use, requires only a one-time payment, and can process files directly from the camera.
Everyday, I can’t wait to finish work and goof around with Bento.
This ranking by Fast Company isn’t a catalogue on brand purpose. But the reasons why each company is included in the list could very well be. For example, YouTube: ushering internet creators into the living room; Notion: organizing the task of organizing.
I think one of the key traits of a good designer, is the curiosity and obsession to systematically explore the unknown.
I learned that my former company will close shop, taking with it the name, brand, and work that I invested so much time caring for. It’s sad. It was the best work of my career, and I really enjoyed my time there.
Established brands tend do double down on value creation by cutting on things that make them special, but are costly to maintain. I’ve seen this happen from a close distance. The problem is that as companies cut on distinctiveness, they lose the very things that differentiate them from competitors. It’s a shortcut to disaster.
The best camera you have, is the old one that you won't worry about if it gets dropped, scratched, or even stolen. For me, that’s my almost 10 year old Fuji.
Today, work went extremely well. But right after I was done, I was jumping around with Bento, ruptured a muscle in my leg, and had to go to the doctor. Bento was shocked and so am I.
I'm not courageous. As a matter of fact, I think I might be the least courageous person out there. For most of my life, I've fought choices that take real courage. But I guess I'm fine. I'm happy.
It was the first beach day of the year, and we had a good time throwing rocks into the water.
It’s the international women’s day and I’m thinking how many of the worlds problems (including today’s geopolitical nonsense) wouldn’t even be a problem if men weren’t allowed in politics.
I think Elon Musk will be fine. Especially with Nerolink, Starlink and Space X bringing a lot of cash. I don’t know about Tesla, though. It doesn’t look too promising. 70% yoy sales decrease in Germany. It’s such a highly competitive category and Musk does not help.
I called Bruno to wish him Happy Birthday. I used to be really close with my brother. I still am, but we barely speak nowadays. Mostly due to living in completely different time zones.
I like to think of brands (mostly non FMCG brands) as clubs. Do I want to be associated with this club or not? I don't believe that collective boycotts have much impact, but when many individuals make a principled choice to stop being part of a certain club, things can happen. For example, Tesla's sales dropping 70% YoY in Germany.
It's sad that teachers are ending up in some sort of dystopic witch hunt trying to guess who used AI or not for their school assignments.
Today, it was our anniversary. I was planning to surprise Caterina with something nice, flowers, and then... we got a call from the Kindergarten. Bento is sick and I need to pick him up. I remembered, though.
Spent the day playing with Bento. His new favorite game is hitting a balloon with a toy axe. Pretend baseball, I guess.
Enough of politics. The internet (and the world) is full of horrible people with horrible takes.
So, if someone lies in front of the whole world, is it disrespectful to correct them? Disrespectful is how the vice president of the US giggled like a little boy when the president of a country at war was asked to wear a suit.
I think there were only two other times when I felt sad about a piece of software ceasing to exist. First, when Star Wars Galaxies servers closed down. Second, when Flash was cancelled. Posts and Read.cv were just as good.
I'm almost certain that aiming for infinite growth kills the fun of every business.
It's so ironic how Microsoft acquired the product that defined video calls for my generation, only to let it die once video calls became the norm.
Never in my life have I felt that my speech is restricted in any way, shape or form. I have always been able to express myself, freely. But the thing with freedom – much like beauty, justice, and other absolute values – is that it is subjective and never fully attainable. And that's ok. Absolutes aren't healthy. Especially when it comes to freedom, the problem is when my freedom begins to impact someone else's. I believe my expression in my social circle should be completely unrestricted and unmoderated by third parties, but the dynamics of published words (and images) on social networks are more complex. Algorithms unexpectedly present users with truly awful and unmoderated stuff. That's why I don't oppose moderation on tech platforms and social networks. I see no place for inciting violence, murder, bullying, or even intentionally harmful lies. At this point, the whole freedom of speech in US driven politics is just virtue signaling for political gain in my honest opinion.
When it comes to Ikigai and stuff, I wonder if purpose is nothing more than a good and meaningful obsession. From my perspective, it seems like finding a “why” is only possible after finding what you’re really obsessed about. The answer to: why are you obsessed about it? On that note, I still haven’t found mine. Too many ephemeral obsessions.
What a piece of shit of a human being. Blackmailing a country that is defending itself into signing an exploitative contract. It’s not even about peace anymore.
For the first time Bento didn't notice he was wearing his glasses on the way to the Kindergarten. I think he cried just a little once he realized he was wearing them, but everything was fine. He likes his glasses now.
Tinder.com was apparently supposed to be a Goodreads competitor. That's almost as funny as YouTube starting as a dating website.
I introduced Bento to the projector. Since then, we've been enjoying cinema sessions in the evenings. First, he wanted to watch nature scenes and pretend he was at the beach. Then, it was Simon's Cat. Now, Minions.
It's been a couple of tough days at work. I feel like this week, to get things done, I've been neglecting some of my manegerial responsibilities. I don't want to let people down, but maybe that's the burden of hybrid roles.
Found an open source version of webflow (webstudio), and what a better weekend project than neglect proper rest and create a new website for myself?
Bento wanted to play soccer, so we went to the playground. It is impressive how good he has become since the summer. We also played catch and drew in the sand. It was cold—minus 7°C.
It was again a sofa day. But not the kind I’d have preferred. We spent the day looking for a new sofa for our new apartment.
I’m not deep into politics, but as an immigrant myself, I wonder why American politicians are so supportive of anti immigration policies in Europe. I have some theories of my own, but they make little sense.
Highlight of the day was watching Simon’s Cat with Bento. Its become a ritual for the past couple of days. It’s so funny and well animated. I miss our cats.
It’s going to be a rough week. Team is reduced, so it all ends up on my table.
I wonder if people who work in high-end stores maintain their politeness and attentiveness when you meet them outside of work. Or do they turn into rude people like everyone else?
Today, we took a day trip to the beach in Travemünde. Bento was excited to see the jellyfish, but he couldn't make it. On his way to the water, the cold got the best of him, and he gave up, so we went to the restaurant instead. It felt like -30 degrees.
Today we went to check out some sofas for the new apartment but still didn't find anything we were satisfied with. For lunch, I made chickpea curry. It seems to be Bento's favorite food these days.
From the moment it is clear that a certain technology can elevate human work to superhuman quality, its adoption becomes inevitable. This is true for any field of science. And it is true for design.
It seems like we’re deep in some kind of techno capitalist Cold War.
This afternoon I had to reinstall my computer twice. It just wouldn’t stop crashing. It kind of messed my workday and overall week plan.
As Spotify grows more and more, I want to use less and less. Especially after the fuckery they’re doing to increase revenue came to light.
I’ve tried brave, edge, safari, chrome, arc, and Opera is easily my favorite browser so far. I’ve been using it only for a couple of weeks, but I really like the custom side panels.
“In most cases, I see AI helping us think less while producing more. It feeds on our urge to create, but robs us of the critical activities behind the creation. It prioritizes quantity over quality.” – Ben Tsai
Part of being in a corporate/tech job is witnessing grown man overusing emojis. And ChatGPT for announcements.
What an experience! It was great time meeting new people, seeing Asaf and his kid at the cerimony, and also (obviously) enjoying a delicious continental breakfast over a few days.
It was great working from our Berlin office and seeing some colleagues. Enjoyed lunch with Dominik, and in the evening, me, Caterina and Bento went to an Italian restaurant next to the hotel.
Traveling to Berlin for the weekend. I’m happy to see Asaf again.
In the past couple of days, I’ve been feeling some design nostalgia. First, 2advanced brought back their early 2000s Flash site, now built with Rive. Then, I found some new posters by Gmunk for NASA, where he references some his aesthetic from over 20 years ago!
It troubles me that some people really think that other humans deserve a life of limited opportunities and suffering simply because of where they were born.
I was hoping for regulation against the largest creative theft of our times by big tech. But after all the billions, having open source eat from their plate is just as good.
500 billion dollars! Data is the new gold, and these companies have gotten a pass for collecting any data they want, stolen or not, for their own benefit. That’s worth something, right!
I miss the punk, raw, rabbit hole of creative inspiration that FFFFound was. Since it closed, no alternative has even come close to how good it was. Tha is the Japanese agency that was behind it. Fascinating work.
It was a strange day. Productive, yet filled with bad family news and a sick kiddo.
Maybe the true benchmark for AI to be considered genuine AI is when you want to keep having conversations with it, and vice versa. At the moment, it has no initiative. It is just a tool, pretending to be more than a tool.
For platforms to be sticky, they need to both offer something that pulls people in, as well as something that keeps them around. For a new platform to win, it needs to be at the same level of polish as the current offers in the market, and offer something which is drastically different or better. It’s damn hard, and that’s why many fail, but I wish them best of luck – the current landscape sucks.
This neck pain is excruciating. Working with two screens also doesn't make it easier.
I'm feeling a bit lost. Things are moving, life is progressing, but lately it feels like I'm making little progress in the things that used to be important to me. As I get older, I keep losing parts of who I used to be, and I fear that at some point it might be too late to find myself again.
It’s funny how on the verge of a TikTok ban, every platform started attempting to look more like TikTok. LinkedIn integrated video into its bottom navi, Instagram went full vertical, and Substack is branding itself as a TikTok alternative with "Video, Writing, Chat & Live." Like Piranhas in the water.
Posts was perhaps my last hope for a nice corner of the internet. It really had a nice vibe – a little like spending time with friends at a cozy café. It also had (and still has) the most tasteful UI design from all the social media platforms out there. It’s sad to see it being sunset, but I guess nowadays there is no endgame for bootstrapped web platforms – they either fail or get acquired.
I’ve been using Bluesky, but one thing I realized from all these years of social media is that I prefer more niche communities. Otherwise, my mind keeps getting distracted with toxic people and topics, like politics, crime, and such.
I need to empty my SD cards. Today, it came to my mind that I haven’t taken any photos in a while because I can’t be bothered to do so.
Historically the technical barrier has protected companies against competition. In the future, copycats will be quick and everywhere.
I found this quote from David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs and I really need to read this book: “We as a society have collectively decided it’s better to have millions of human beings spending years of their lives pretending to type into spreadsheets or preparing mind maps for PR meetings than freeing them to knit sweaters, play with their dogs, start a garage band, experiment with new recipes, or sit in cafés arguing about politics, and gossiping about their friends’ complex polyamorous love affairs.”
Substack Notes really works differently. I’ve never been on any other platform where something I wrote became viral. But on Notes, it has happened twice already that my posts, like this one, have gained a life of its own.
I've been enjoying curating my record collection in the [Record Club] (https://record.club/davidmendes/releases). Today, I spent a couple of hours revisiting albums and labels that I haven't listened to in years.
Curious that in Germany, neither twitter nor Substack is ranked under Social. Both are categorized as News apps. This makes sense for Substack’s newsletters, but I would argue that twitter is more of a social network. Maybe the team at twitter just doesn't want to rank below Threads, even if that’s the reality.
I really like Jasmine’s ins & outs list for 2025, especially when it comes to Faye Wong. Chungking Express is like one of my all time favorite movies. Well, to be honest, all movies from Wong Kar Wai are. Also, it feels like a good reflection of the current times that cocaine and assassination are in, while cancel culture is out.
Big step tomorrow. I don't quite feel ready to celebrate yet since there's still a lot of work on the horizon. But I guess I’ll be a home owner from now on.
With the rise of influencers, authenticity has been already thrown out of the window, but AI generated photos of yourself is like the cherry on top of everything that’s wrong with social media.
Today, Bento was crying while hugging me goodbye at the kindergarten. It makes me really sad.
I’ve finally decided to start exercising daily. I know a lot of people make such resolutions at the start of the year, but that’s a first for me.
I’ve always been a sucker for melancholic sad music, so I couldn’t agree more with this take from Tom York: "You know you’re in trouble when people stop listening to sad music. Because the moment people stop listening to sad music, they don’t want to know anymore. They’re turning themselves off."
I don’t think the problem was ever moderation, but rather censorship.
Spotify seems to be the winner in the music streaming wars, but for the past couple of years NTS has been my happy place when it comes to music. I just can’t get over it. There’s so many great shows. And the best, is that it’s supported by the community. I can’t recommend the Breakfast Show with Flo Dill.
Most people start the year with projections, predictions, reflections and resolutions. Most don’t change a thing.
Chilled first day of the year spent at home with Bento. Played with Bluey, Bingo and the gang.