Links, notes, and sundries.

A look at the people and production processes that shaped the revolutionary design of the Black Panther Party’s flagship newspaper.

A tumblr filled with pixelated backgrounds from old video games.

Beautiful.

I’ve long been a sucker for personal sites that mimic a desktop experience, and Dustin’s designed a fine one here.

A look at American restaurant menus from the turn of the nineteenth century and, through them, the country as a whole.

Don’t miss their interactive gallery of nearly five thousand menus from that time period. Stunning work.

Love this site from Sami Smith, which lets you cut out old magazines — either from the Internet Archive, or from your own PDFs — and use them to make digital collages.

A tremendous profile of Trici Venola, an early MacPaint-era digital artist. Her portfolio is filled with stunning pixel art, but I’m still thinking about this line:

“But where’s the tiger coming from?” he asked in genuine bewilderment, “isn’t there a program for drawing the tiger? That you just tell and it draws one?” and he wandered away leaving me wondering forever, Where does the tiger come from?

The University of Colorado’s Media Archaeology Lab is “one of the largest collections in the world of still-functioning obsolete media.” Their catalog is filled with all the hardware you’d expect — old PCs and Macs, gaming consoles, and more — but don’t miss their trove of software and printed materials.

I have a new life goal, and it is to visit the MAL at some point. What a wonderful thing this is.

Naz talks about his latest redesign, which started as a response to the emerging of “AI” slop. But over time, it helped him reconnect with some older, deeper ideas.

I paused to think about what I found inspiring at this time, and what feels fundamentally me. The answer lay in a mix of blueprints, indigo dyes, and selvedge denim. Add in some mid-century Americana via compartmentalized typography, and here we are. In hindsight, I’ve used shades of blue a number of times with Weightshift, but had left it behind. The blues are back.

What’s new to me is what’s true to me.

Love the redesign; love the way he talks about it even more.

mandy has given us two gifts here: a powerhouse of an essay about reading as a form of resistance and rediscovery; and — and! — a gorgeous, stately new redesign.

Also, mandy’s announced a new subscription model for her website. Her site will remain free, but if you’ve ever wanted to support her writing, well, now’s your chance.

Tim Van Damme updates his homepage to show non-work projects, and it’s about as lovely as you’d expect.

(Be sure to click or tap into some of those work samples. That zoom treatment is gorgeous, and not to be missed.)