A quarter has passed since the last worknotes; now’s a good time to reflect on what I’ve been up to.

Lunar Energy

Two pieces of work this quarter with the Design team at Lunar. I wrapped up the project mentioned at the end of 2023 in January, as I’d expected. A second project emerged in March, exploring generative/systemic graphic and motion design, and that wrapped that up this week. There should be things I can point at and say more about very soon.

Creative Computing Institute

It’s spring break currently - the gap between the second and third terms - at CCI. I wrapped the first half of the first year undergrad class I teach; I’m back in early April for the summer term, when we’ll be looking first at audio, and then at particle systems. I particularly enjoy the latter - it’s such a rich and fun topic to play with in code.

Work with Acts Not Facts

A small project with Matt W over at Acts Not Facts, which there’s not much to say about right now, but had some good in-room collaboration. Oh, and his AI Clock - Poem/1 - that I’d previously done some firmware work on - hit its goal on Kickstarter (and then some - 117% funded), which is excellent news, and means that will be getting into the world.

Ongoing consulting

Technical/strategy consulting with the very early-stage startup I’m advising continued; just this week I’ve been helping them get a prototype of a core concept up and running, so that they can evaluate and test it with real users.

I also had a catch-up about a games project I’d been lightly advising on; they’ve got funding, which means there’s some thinking/consulting/plotting - and maybe prototyping - to come in the next quarter.

Content strategy for this site

One of the outcomes of some recent coaching with Andrew Lovett-Baron was overhauling how I communicate a bit; trying to build up a cadence of content here again. Weeknotes served me well for so long, but they are had to maintain in fallow periods, or in long periods of NDA’d work. So they fell by the wayside a bit.

I’ve decided to try to move to a more programmed set of formats: regular-ish (eg, quarterly) Worknotes that describe recent output and projects; Process Notes that talk about studio practice and process, not necessarily focused on a recent project, but as a way of demonstrating my own practice and approach; and writing about One Thing from time to time, as a way of sharing insight and critique - as well as the kinds of things that interest me as a designer/technologist.

So far: I think it’s going OK?

Spending time with peers

I’ve spent a bunch of Q1 2024 just taking time to catch up with peers and colleagues to compare notes on… this and that. That’s been, as usual, restorative. I’m writing this to remind myself - and you, reader - that it’s worth expending the effort on. As a sole practitioner, it’s worth spending time maintaining the collaborative/conversational/social aspects of work that just aren’t there when you’re on your own most days. Q1 was a good period to recharge in.

What’s on the horizon for the coming months: wrapping this term of teaching; beginning consulting on the above games project; some ongoing hardware prototyping/exploration; lining up the Next Thing. Onwards.