Greetings

Salutations, comrade.

About

I’m Robin, a designer and writer from the UK but now I live in San Francisco. This is where I experiment with storytelling and browsers, rant about typography, and work in public. My current side project is The Cascade.

Abilities

In Praise of Shadows

Newsletters

The Futures of Typography

Notes

  1. Stop Using AI-Generated Images

    Yawn.

  2. People and Blogs

    A chat with Manuel Moreale.

  3. Nuform Type

    Man, the websites.

  4. Help is just help

    What am I hoping for?

  5. Cut the Intro

    We don’t need a manifesto.

  6. Design systems, color spaces, and CSS

    OK…lch.

  7. The Cascade

    Loving CSS in 2023 feels lonely.

  8. footer.design

    So many opportunities!

  9. Typographic Malaise

    I fear that I’ve seen everything that typography is capable of.

  10. Meta in Myanmar

    Neglicence and genocide.

  11. Meh

    Taking care in the face of apathy.

  12. Metra Ticket Gallery

    Weak in the knees.

  13. Kobo Libra 2

    It’s the closest thing we’ve got.

  14. v13

    I will redesign my website today just to spite you.

  15. A lot of stuff is just fine.

    “…you really gotta try to screw up a website”

  16. Processing painful work exits

    How to cope when your job explodes.

  17. Why are websites embarrassing?

    I don’t even trust the back button any more.

  18. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère

    “Art does not progress by improving what came before…”

  19. Type Revival for Film & TV

    Even a resume can be punk as hell.

  20. Where the gaps are

    Take care of your portfolio and it’ll take care of you.

  21. Marmite Defontes

    Piggle, Puff, and Snacks.

  22. Shufflin’

    A new website (again).

  23. brr

    The strange and curious doors of Antarctic stations.

  24. Dark mode in the ancient world

    …on pages dyed a deep, bluish black.

  25. On successor states and websites

    All it takes is one jerk.

  26. Writing Tools

    Ending things with a thud!

  27. Guide Guide

    Make complex grid systems real easy.

  28. What’s Next?

    What do I want from a new gig?

  29. These Handsome Young Men

    And the warmth of Morse code and folded letters.

  30. Parallax

    A thousand galaxies, drifting by.

  31. Seven Gigabytes

    “The ultimate zip file.”

  32. Update

    New day, new website.

  33. Typography is a service, not an art

    Take off your typographic monocle.

  34. The Risks of Staying Put

    “…just because a situation is familiar doesn’t mean it’s the best that you can do.”

  35. The Linotype Book Project

    The Linotype Book Project deserves all your emoji.

  36. To-do

    A book is an endless list.

  37. Offsite

    Bad work kills great teams.

  38. View Transitions API

    How does this change web design in the future?

  39. Handwriting Fonts For Lo-Fi Design

    Handwriting fonts are the definition of punk rock.

  40. Layers

    Layers of complimentary vibrations!

  41. The Next Great Impasse

    The Next Great Impasse is always just as big and as terrifying as the last one.

  42. The details element is amazing

    The fifth planet in the solar system.

  43. Syntax × Sentry

    “…your cool neighborhood dive bar.”

  44. Counter-space

    I need to see the counter-space.

  45. The Mountain in the Sea

    The world still contains miracles, despite everything that has been done to it.

  46. Time Control

    This is not the way to do great work.

  47. 1,799

    What the hell am I doing?

  48. Your reading should be messy

    That is what a book is for.

  49. The venture capitalist’s dilemma

    “Venture capital may be the best way to serve the interests of capital, but we need to consider alternative models that prioritize the interests of people.”

  50. Artificial Guessing

    AI is a mirror, AI is a prison.

Photo

A picture of Robin Rendle, taking a photo of himself with a camera
February 2022

Blogroll

Söhne

MD IO

Typesetting

Söhne by Klim Type is perfect and I use it everywhere, but I can’t really say why since I mostly roll my eyes at big chunky neo-grotesques. You see them all the time and they look mean in a way that I find unpleasant. But Söhne has a warmth to it that’s missing in the other descendants of Akzidenz-Grotesk. It’s just lovely.

MD IO by Mass Driver is another favorite and I use it for captions and code blocks. It’s sort of in the same category as Söhne where I’ve seen endless mono typefaces and shrugged but this one makes me perk up and snap to attention. Oh, and make sure to check out the excellent type specimen site, too.

Birthplace

Home

Total Redesigns

15,034

Under the Hood

This website was built with Eleventy and published via Netlify. You can view all the code over on GitHub if you want to take any inspiration for a website of your own. Oh, and this website doesn’t collect any information from you and there’s no cookies cus I respect ya and don’t want to grift ya.

I change the styles and typography of this website a lot, sometimes multiple times a week. Let a website be a worry stone, etc.

Favorite Color