![\"\"](\"https://jonathanstephens.us/media/pages/journal/lists-of-emotions/e31a42fa1f-1769878031/screenshot-of-interactive-emotion-mapping.png\" "\\"Screenshot")
I have a quite a few examples of where I worked on user growth by owning the strategy and roadmap for acquisition and activation. I led the Growth & Localization organization at Booking.com where I was focused on a broad portfolio of product teams focused on accelerating growth through focused interventions in specific markets and domains—search, maps, geo, families, content conversion, and each of the markets Booking.com was focused on developing further through Localization. All this done in iterative experimentation focused on conversion optimization, reducing customer churn, and addressing discovered customer needs.
\nHowever, the story I want to tell is focused on my time leading the Accommodation Partner Native Apps Platform organization where we tripled the amount of partners using the native app—from 500k to 1.5M+—and increasing daily active usage to 77.3%.
\nTo achieve our goals, I developed a long term organizational strategy—spoke & hub organization with my platform teams and technical leads as the center spoke. This collaborative leadership infrastructure actively aligned cross-departmental individual contributors community with leads—growing from 1->15 teams during my tenure across five departments (I directly managed three, inclusive of the Leads).
\nTo enable & facilitate that growth—500k to 1.5M+—we had to fundamentally address longer term technical & product debt. After developing the organizational foundations, I gathered my leadership team and we defined the product direction for the upcoming years, fully focused on enabling growth through strategic, foundational changes to the application.
\nAs a result, over the next year, we completed key initiatives that utilized the cross-departmental and cross-functional communities of practice, as well as pivoting my own team's product foci for deliberate investment. These key initiatives were:
\nDear Wallapop Hiring Team,
\nMy wife sent me this role the moment she found it. After reading the job description, researching the company, and understanding where Wallapop is headed, I knew she was right. The Growth Product Manager role sits at the exact intersection of what I do, what I believe, and where I want to build next.
I believe I'd be a strong addition for three reasons:
\nGrowth comes from building the conditions that cultivate it: cultures of experimentation, organizational design that enables velocity, and institutional knowledge built through continuous learning. As Booking.com scaled from 390k properties and 6k employees to 2.3M properties and 22k employees, I led the product organizations driving that growth—tripling a partner platform from 500k to 1.5M+ properties, achieving 35% year-over-year active property growth, and pushing daily active usage to 79%.
\nThose product outcomes were only possible because of the organizational foundations underneath them. At Booking.com I designed a spoke-and-hub model that scaled from 1 to 15 teams across five departments, built cross-functional communities of practice that kept alignment without creating bottlenecks, and cultivated 40+ promotions across six years. At Poet & Scribe, I've carried that same approach into consultancy—helping teams untangle what isn't working and build the product foundations that make scaling possible.
\nBuilding products for global markets means deeply understanding how people in different contexts think, transact, and trust while designing for that from the start. Leading Booking.com's Growth & Localization organization, we built a copy experimentation tool that let localization copywriters run experiments independently, no developer or designer time required, dramatically accelerating experiment velocity. We also expanded into Latin America by adding Argentine Spanish as Booking.com's 43rd language, understanding that the right product experience in a new market requires far more than translation.
\nWhat draws me to Wallapop goes beyond the role itself. Early in my career I worked at North Carolina's Department of Environment and Natural Resources on sustainability education and outreach. At Booking.com, I advised a startup through the Booking Cares accelerator (focused on sustainable travel) that won first prize and €10,000. The circular economy isn't a new idea for me. It's a throughline.
\nMy wife is Catalan, and Barcelona is where we want to build our lives — closer to her family, the language, the culture. Finding a role that brings all of this together, at this moment in Wallapop's growth story, isn't something I take lightly.
\nI'd love the opportunity to discuss how my background in growth, product leadership, and building for global markets can contribute to what Wallapop is building next. I'm confident I'd hit the ground running and genuinely excited about what we could build together.
\nSincerely,
\nJonathan Stephens
For a newspaper:
\nFor depth of information on a website:
\nWhat sort of information to you expose, and when? And how?
\nIt an expandable model of content development that emerges. Also, in exercises, it becomes lists of lists. How much should you contextualize in a moment, or in the other person's information-seeking journey?
\nIt works like a newspaper...but, the thing is, the web doesn't have the tactile, physical aspects newspaper, and the print medium, have. That comes with specific affordances, derived by its method of communication and means of production.
\nWhat we do have, on the web, are thresholds of relevant information needed at scanning levels.
", "date_published": "2026-04-10T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Information Architecture", "URL Design", "Content Design", "Thresholds", "Boundaries" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/information-popup", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/information-popup", "title": "Information Popup", "content_html": "On click, a simple dialog appears to explain an aspect of the digital garden—or, at least, a pattern to easily explain bits of the garden.
\nDuckDuckGo is one of my favorite browsers, for it's privacy standards and how it goes about things (also very fun branding with Dax Brown & logo easter eggs). I'd love to help develop & strengthen a company's suite of products focused on privacy, the web, and globally, diverse, and inclusive team. I especially like the DRI idea for responsibility and accountability, along with advisory roles & employee \"boards\" or support.
\nI believe in the web, and an open internet. Explicitly one that respects individual's privacy through a more consent-focused model. While I also have experimented and worked using Generative AI models in various professional & personal projects, appreciate your NoAI subdomain to make an easy-to-access tool that simplifies the search in excluding such. The alignment of company values to products is an important aspect that interests me in the company itself (let alone what that can mean for what products to develop/manage!).
\nYes. For a good part of my career, I was responsible for the development, delivery, quality, and performance of B2C and B2B cross-functional organizations—Growth & Localization, Accommodation Partner Platforms, and Partner Native Apps at Booking.com. Throughout that time, I managed 4–15 teams directly, comprised of 30~100 people of different disciplines—designers, developers, quality specialists, data scientists, team leads, craft leads—as a manager of managers. Each had their own business objectives of diverse variety.
\nSpecifically, increasing downloads and driving daily active users was the mobile native platform. We tripled the amount of partners using the application—from 500k to 1.5M+ and increasing daily active usage to 77.3%.
\nI began telling the story above. I'll continue here.
\nDuring my time with the Partner Native Apps, I developed a long term organizational strategy—spoke & hub organization with my platform/leads team as the center spoke. I aligned the cross-departmental individual contributors community with leads—growing from 1->15 teams during my tenure.
\nAfter setting the foundations, I gathered my leadership team and we defined the product direction for the next year, focused on enabling growth through fundamental changes to the application.
\nDuring that time we:
\nWhile I was leading the Growth & Localization B2C organization for Booking.com, there was a project called the \"Copy Experimentation Tool\" that would enable copywriters to run their own A/B experiments without needing support & hours from developers or designers to implement. This was critical for Localization as our guiding principle was to make the global feel local—especially with language.
\nI was routinely challenged by my manager and peers at the time & investment it took to create the tool and bring it into full development (my team was developing it internally for use across the company). Each time, I would come back to the data and outsized impact copy experiments continuously had on the bottom line (conversion optimization, customer service ticket reduction, etc). The return-on-investment of developing the tool would continue facilitating that impact while giving developers more time for other product development needs & work.
\nI also listened to their concerns—what were we dropping or not doing instead? If it's so impactful why isn't there a team focused on that (this was proving the concept for further investment in a team if needed as well). We developed the testing iteratively, in collaboration with others, and showed its impact.
", "date_published": "2026-04-04T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Job Application", "Application Questions" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/my-question-for-amy-santee", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/my-question-for-amy-santee", "title": "My Question for Amy Santee", "content_html": "Am I constantly getting rejected because I'm applying to things I'm seen as \"overqualified\" for?
", "date_published": "2026-04-01T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Job Search" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/study-in-grad-school", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/study-in-grad-school", "title": "Things I'd like to study in grad school", "content_html": "Specifically, the stressful points of transitioning through. Noticing the signs of when, and developing a clear framework to aid in recognition.
\nExploring taxonomy through a folksonomy lens and how that develops various systems of design: brand, identity, tokens, code, architecture, etc. What are the relations—how do they evolve?
\nThis is more general, but I want to get better. It could be around:
\nSpecifically figuring out a way to encompass all the challenges of what web design is compared to other artifact types, e.g. print, video, space, etc.
\nThere are visible, accessible, physical constraints to each.
\nNot so much when designing things for web.
", "date_published": "2026-04-01T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Study", "Grad School" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/parting", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/parting", "title": "Parting", "content_html": "\nOf all the money that e'er I had\nI spent it in good company\nAnd all the harm I've ever done\nAlas it was to none but me\nAnd all I've done for want of wit\nTo mem'ry now I can't recall\nSo fill to me the parting glass\nGood night and joy be to you all\n", "date_published": "2026-03-31T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Lyrics", "Favorite Song", "Goodbye", "Parting", "Gezelligheid", "Drinking Culture", "Sharing Space", "Drinking Together" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/rebuilding-identity", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/rebuilding-identity", "title": "Rebuilding Identity", "content_html": "So fill to me the parting glass
\n
\nAnd drink a health whate'er befall,
\nAnd gently rise and softly call
\nGood night and joy be to you allOf all the comrades that e'er I had
\n
\nThey're sorry for my going away
\nAnd all the sweethearts that e'er I had
\nThey'd wish me one more day to stay
\nBut since it falls unto my lot
\nThat I should rise and you should not
\nI gently rise and softly call
\nGood night and joy be to you allIf I had money enough to spend
\n
\nAnd leisure time to sit awhile
\nThere is a fair maid in this town
\nThat sorely has my heart beguiled.
\nHer rosy cheeks and ruby lips
\nI own she has my heart in thrall
\nThen fill to me the parting glass
\nGood night and joy be with you all.A man may drink and not be drunk
\n
\nA man may fight and not be slain
\nA man may court a pretty girl
\nAnd perhaps be welcomed back again
\nBut since it has so ought to be
\nBy a time to rise and a time to fall
\nCome fill to me the parting glass
\nGood night and joy be with you all
\nGood night and joy be with you all
Over the past years—ever since I discovered my neurodivergence and took time off work on a long-term burnout leave (can read about in my Chrysalis essays, parts one and two—I've been figuring out various new identities that I became all at once and very quickly.
\nI even call it out in Chrysalis Part Two, back in 2021:
\n\n\nWhen in chrysalis, everything that made that caterpillar a caterpillar has been breaking down into a sort of caterpillar goop. I can’t describe my state throughout this period of time as anything but being a big pile of Jonathan-goop.
\n
A lot of those identities became new to me, as an individual:
\nAs well as developing them via through more professional avenues:
\nI went to a group coaching the other week and asked, \"How do you choose?\" and then, when you do choose, \"How do you choose...again?\" because one decision immediately branches into multiple more choices that need even more decisions.
\nI'm finding a lot of that, meta-wise, boils down into a more something more fundamental.
\nIt's less about just making a choice, but continuing the journey of my journey into Chrysalis, that came about in 2020. I've been searching for the new frame, or at least a framing that can encompass all these bits and bobs.
\nThis is something that's been knocking around my head for a while now—actually going in on identity design. I find a lot of immature and underdeveloped identity work in the design field. There's loads that say \"we have logos, colors, and the shapes we use\" without any actual guide on the work, meaning, or story behind the why of these things.
\nThe power of a change or refresh of typography can be a massively impactful thing. As can developing & maturing a company's branding and identity.
\nI think that's one of the things that irks me in the differentiation of branding and identity.
\nBranding is the stuff on the outside. The word, itself, comes from the act of taking red-hot, fancy-shaped metal, stamping-on and burning flesh—scarring. Becoming a brand. Saying: I own this, this is mine.
\nIdentity feels deeper, more holistic. It's less static. It's about communication, processes, figuring out what works best for your specific circumstance. It's about reflection, naming, and guiding how things are made.
\nThe past half-decade's been spent in this space—personally and professionally. Not sure my frame's yet fully formed, but I'm gettin' there.
\nIt would be a very nice second service offering for Poet & Scribe, focusing on identity.
\nWith Principles & Values, it would pair nicely. It's a part of the larger Identity work when starting an engagement that would be part of a \"re-branding\" effort.
\nThe first, Principles & Values, lays the foundations—tilling the soil, then seeding, caring, then rooting them.
\nThe second, Branding & Identity, is the more complex, multifaceted, identity work that grows from these principles and values—demonstrated in the circulatory and respiratory systems of the company.
\nThe third—Systems & Structures, what I'll call organizational service design (for now)—is the much more difficult work of gluing all those pieces together. It's a messy mix of coworker, client, customer experience designs. All interconnected and interwoven.
\nThat leads us here.
\nThese are the questions that interest me: the who, why, and how.
\nThe what is variable—for myself, and for potential clients & customers to work with.
\nThe where and when are contextual, depending a lot on every other question above.
Each of these three also work at each scale of engagement:
\nUltimately creating a nice'n'tidy matrix of work:
\n| Scale | Principles & Values (Why) | Branding & Identity (Who) | Systems & Structures (How) |
\n| ------------- | ------------- |
\n| Individual | Leadership | ~Personal~ | ~Automation~ |
\n| Team | Relationship | Bonding | Subculture |
\n| Organization | Guiding | Naming | Doing |
An aspect of leadership is understanding something needs to change and the thing that must is you.
\nThere aren't explicit Stages of Leadership like there are with Stages of Team Development. Disappointingly, the Stages of Team Development are, themselves, presented linearly when they're more non-linear ecosystemic data points of organizational health diagnostics. There's oscillation between stages as people join
\nThey scaffold conversations, creating space for humanity—connection, vulnerability, and communication.
\nHere're the scenarios where I learned how to understand the imppact of team development, building trust, and becoming a stronger, more flexible, adaptive improvisational leader.
\nThe rate of change directly impacts the team and organizational health, as well as your individual style & stage of leadership. Are you in a team that's swapping out members:
\nEach and every one of these differ, drastically, in the broader organizational & business needs.
\nIf you're adding a new teammate once every three years, you're going to encounter certain challenges with a very different time frame.
\nThrow in a dash of situational leadership.
\nThe tools and skills you learned to get where you are now are no longer effective and you need to learn a different way of doing things.
", "date_published": "2026-03-26T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Stages of Leadership", "Stages of Team Development", "Improvisational Leadership", "Situational Leadership", "Move Slow and Bake Things" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/service-principles-values", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/service-principles-values", "title": "A Service: Principles & Values", "content_html": "This is one of our first exclusive services we offer at Poet & Scribe. At least, what I hope and want to become one.
\nWe work with leaders who want to develop a list of their values and guiding principles as leaders—or as a team.
\nHow do you communicate the work you do? What drives you? How do you frame your decision making to instill a sense of trust in not just the how you're spending your time, but the why. Deepen relationships through clearly communicating who you are as a leader by investing in the time to understand what you're doing?
\nYou have corporate ones already—cool, great! We can use those as a grounding conversation point, delving deeper in how the team exhibits these values in everyday work. How can they be better ratified or built into the culture? Or we start there and build your own subculture's organinzational principles out of that, branching towards something unique.
\nThis is half of each engagement's pricing above—in time and expense.
\nPoet & Scribe is, fundamentally, about the collision of two opposing lenses—yet shared.
\nBoth seek to document, preserve, and share.
\nBoth communicate with intentional language.
\nBoth inform how we share in the experience of being human.
If you go through an engagement and—likely—discover that the path to putting these principles & values to practice is convoluted.
\nWe offer these three tiers as the challenge grows in complexity and time-to-see impact.
", "date_published": "2026-03-23T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Poet & Scribe", "Pricing", "Service Offer", "Service", "Coaching", "Consulting", "Mentoring", "Teaching" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/iterating-on-my-site-s-content-structure", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/iterating-on-my-site-s-content-structure", "title": "Iterating on my site's content & structure", "content_html": "This site is my little space on the internet to do with as I wish, and I've been approaching it through the frame of digital gardening.
\nAn aspect of gardening is tending to it as weeds grow or things outgrow and need replanting.
\nThis is one of those thoughts/notes.
\nCurrently, this isn't reppresenting me properly, nor does it accurately tell the story I want to tell of myself.
\nI've been writing a lot of these things for trying to get a job and figuring out what pepople would want to read hiring, but it's not serving me anymore. During this week's community coaching call with Sarah Watchter-Boetcher of Active Voice, she had posed the question to me: what would happen if you just did it? It echoed what Whitney Hess said—just need to decide and do it.
\nThese are the /abouts of others that I admire and would like to emulate:
\nEach of these have things in common of confidence, storytelling, personal, and professional.
\nThis means some things need to move places to align.
\nSimilarly, I want to build this up more. Things need to move around, but it needs to sound/be more confident in the sort of work I want to do. Things also need to move around here:
\nThis is a new page that shows off the things I'm building through play.
\nThese are small tools that I've vibe-coded in my experimentations with generative LLMs. Of which, I only use for helping me code. It'll be part of my Generative AI Statement, similar to my Accessibilty Statement and the Digital Garden Terms of Service.
\nIt'd be part of my /work things to link to, but also to show how I've been doign things. It'd be part of the story to show for my /work and such, as it seems that almost every job advertisement says \"need to know AI\" or \"need to know how to use AI.\" While I have my own Ludditical beliefs—and challenges with the foundational issues of exploitative extraction and theft of natural & creative resources—I feel that I can't not experiment in the sphere.
\nI've made quite a few things in this realm that I do want to share, talk about, and link to:
\n-/play/pasta: A simple pasta portion calculator using European portion sizes, pasta shapes, use types, etc. to help cook more appropriate sizes of pasta.
--lighest to --mid to --darkest semantic gradient, as well as .csv's of the accessible color pairings, .svg's for copying/pasting into design programs, and color-mixing with the \"white\" and \"black\" of choice for more refined & personalized palettes. .svg image, having all of the color data for hexa, rgba, hsla, oklcha, and laba, as well as their name's, alpha's, categories—all for identity system uses. Also includes exports of accessible contrast pairings across all the colors. \n\nI ended up publishing this list as I finished writing it out, to go ahead and publish the page. This is now accessible in my footer navigation and at /playground.
\n
This needs to be cleaned up for better wayfinding & levels of curiosity/interest.
\nShould be holistically inlusive of skills—\"hard\" and \"soft\", and how they map to each of my roles/experience. Perhaps a levelling and self reporting. Either way, that's a thing.
\nI want to write more clearly what I want my next roles to be. Right now, while I think it does well, it doesn't tell the full story (or link to the parts of the stories) to appropriately act as a landing page to send people to and link to.
\nClarity.
", "date_published": "2026-03-22T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Iteration" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/podcast-wired-for-design", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/podcast-wired-for-design", "title": "Podcast: Wired for Design", "content_html": "Yesterday, I had a good conversation with Skipper Chong Warson, founder & product strategist of How This Works co. As shared our journeys, his driving insight was around how no one really talks with their customers, informing his primary lead offer of Bullseye Customer Sprint.
\nIt's a 3-phase 6-week package to hone in on purpose & positioning for $15k. The first sprint sums the holistic bit nicely:
\n\n\nExtract your team's assumptions about who you're building for, distilling them into a single critical question. Then, draft your Bullseye Customer one-liner: a specific role, at a specific company, with a specific trigger, using a current solution, but needing a different outcome.
\n
The conversation, as it digested, got me thinking...
\nI haven't done this for myself.
\nYesterday, I attended another gathering, with the Job Seeker's Support Group in Active Voice's Slack Community.
\nThere we discussed the challenges of job searching in this day'n'age of sloppy AI-fueled layoffs and the market in general. How much do we need to learn as designers for AI side of things, even if it's not aligned with our ethics...when that's what employers want to see (and are explicitly hiring for)? How do we show up authentically for differentiation when that same showing up is Othered, dismissed, told is too weird, or too outside the typical formula?
\nBoth conversations covered the devaluation of creative labor and our careers. What does it mean to create artifacts these days? How does work come in when people will say \"why not let AI do it?\" It's infuriating.
\nIt's the same sort of thing that my life & business partner encountered when attending local business events, as she explained one of our previous iterations of Poet & Scribe.
\n\"Why not let AI do it?\"
\nSomeone, eventually, did pick that up.
\nIn the support group, I dropped into the chat something I've been thinking about for years now: Wired for Design.
\nWired for Design is one of the books I've been wanting to write, as a memoir, writing and reflecting on how I feel Design is a Calling for me. Lately, while the goal is still a book, I think I can have more impact (and more fun) by repurposing it as a podcast. Monday, this week, I also attended a marketing workshop where I learned...newsletters and podcasts are considered long form content! I hadn't considered that framing before, and it changed how I'm approaching things.
\nI find more and more designers and design-adjacent humans \"coming out\" and sharing their newly realized neurodivergence.
\nWhy not have fun conversations with these people and have a podcast about it? Multiple in the support group said they'd listen.
\nSignal.
\nThis feels like something I just need to do. However, I also need a plan. There would be people to invite to interview—sharing what it's about, why I wanna talk, if they're available, and willing—then doing the actual interviews themselves in as neuroinclusive way as possible.
\nI've been having conversations about neurodivergence in various design & tech spaces for nearly six years now. Apart from my own coming out stories, part one and part two, it's one of my fun things to talk about. When I presented to the graduating seniors at N.C. State University's Graphic & Experience Design Undergraduate program in 2022, the most energy and questions were around neurodivergence, burnout, and the experience of it all. When I talk with people, neurodivergence tends to come up (not always at my insertion).
\nSimilarly, discussing how people think differently has been an enjoyable bar topic, too—learning how their thinking styles influence what they do, why they do, and how they do whatever it is they do.
\nThe guiding principles of Poet & Scribe apply, as this would be a Poet & Scribe production. However, this is a different medium, so there needs to be some focus on what that means:
\nAs I was growing up, sometimes my mom would say or notice I needed a mental health day: a day to stay home from school to do nothing, rest, or play.
\nThat was my first foray into naming periods of intentional rest that are typically unacceptable in neuronormative society. I continued that practice as I grew up—during University, then in mid–later twenties. There were some days that I needed to call in sick because, otherwise, I would get sicker and performance would degrade in the longer run.
\nSince my late-realized neurodivergence and burnout in 2020, I've gained a framing for why that happens and have evolved the name for when it does—because...there're different types of days needed.
\nToday's been a bad brain day for me.
\nThere's a variety of reasons, but one of the largest is lack of sleep across multiple days. Not that I didn't try to fall to sleep, it just didn't happen until 0430 one morning and 0230 the day after (in-between both, time also sprung ahead).
\nAs I started my weekday rhythm, I continued to be sluggish. Lengthy time between getting out of bed to feeling awake. My morning shower didn't even help much. Limbs felt weak while walking the dog. Even after appropriate amount of time for my long-release ADHD meds to kick-in, the fogginess was still there.
\nA taste of recognizing how I recognize it's going to be a bad brain day.
\nTypically, it's a general fogginess and lack of ability to focus my brain. It's a thing ADHDers tend to experience, as well as people with Long COVID.
\nIt's not an official medical term, but that's what it can feel like. Wading through a soup of a cloud that's settled making it difficult to see where your flashlight of attention is pointing. The light gets ricocheted around the water droplets and obfuscates whatever blurry shape you're trying to make sense of with a little bit of focused attention.
\nFunnily enough, there's a Wikipedia entry around it, titled clouding of consciousness.
\nThe clouding doesn't just impact the ability to focus, or describe the experience of navigating in a deep fog. There's also a memory and information recall impact that makes it difficult to find, identify, and retrieve specific thought.
\nIn a knowledge work environment, where focused task-work is needed to get the job done, that makes the barrier of working on those days even more difficult.
\nWhen I'm able to identify that it's going to be a Bad Brain Day—as I'm going through it; it's not something I plan ahead to do—I need to follow the my energy flow.
\nI can still be \"productive\" in the day, but it's not going to be anything I had originally planned on. Writing this up is one of those things that could qualify as productive, but not actually doing the work I had intended to today. I've also jumped around writing a few other posts, reading, and working on organizing thoughts as I can.
\nIt means that there'll likely be some additional naps in the day—today there's been two: 45-min and 1-hr. It means there'll be less communication with other humans, as that can take additional toll, decreasing effectiveness of the purposeful, intentional rest. It means there'll be more focus on grounding, bedtime transition rituals—making sure to have my teas, going to bed earlier, and trying pay off the accumulated sleep debt.
\nI've realised these sorts of days are something I need to build into a personal access requirements document (that I intend to write one day).
\nAccess requirements are a clearer way to say \"disability accommodation\" as it's not just an accommodation it's one of those things that's required in my working environment. I need to be able to have days where I can say, \"Nope. Energy's not there today.\"
\nWhile working in the Netherlands, I regularly got scoffed at by doctor's offices when I asked for a note for work. In the office handbook, it clearly said a note was needed from a doctor if you were out sick or needing to go during work hours. Culturally, that's not so much a thing in the Netherlands—personally, that's a tell an American's hand was involved in writing the handbook.
\nThey'd say:
\n\n\nYou're an adult! You don't need a note to say you're sick or you came here.
\n
\nWe also didn't have an allotted number of sick days. When sick, the days off weren't stolen from our contractually & federally mandated paid time off. Those days were meant for relaxation, disconnection, and recharge.
When you're sick—or have bad brain days—they aren't typically too relaxing or recharging.
\nI hadn't experienced that much before, apart from those rare, early school days where my need was seen (not necessarily by me). I've learned a lot since those days, from my time in the Netherlands, and as I've delved into understanding my own needs with my neurodivergent, AuDHD framing.
\nIt's been difficult to do while working self-employed though.
\nLearning how to define boundaries and give myself permission to do this, even when I have to bring the money in, have deadlines to work with, and collaborate with others. It's a loss of income that I'll need to make-up in the days after.
\nThis is one of those reasons many disabled people have to grow income through self-employment—spiky skills and inconsistent, unpredictable energy changes.
\nThere's privilege in being able to pursue and earn enough to get by to do this. There's also a big privilege in working in the Netherlands where sick days aren't a loss of paid time off, where I learned this was a need that I just had to do sometimes.
\nBad Brain Days happen—to me, to disabled people, to allistics. They can happen to everyone.
\nBy Naming them, I'm able to talk more clearly with others about it. I don't apologize for taking the time & space for the rest—I name it and say, \"I'm having a bad brain day, need to take the time to rest. Be back in tomorrow.\"
\nBecause I rested today, I can get back to things tomorrow;
\n...typically.
", "date_published": "2026-03-09T00:00:00-04:00", "tags": [ "Bad Brain Day", "Neuroqueering", "Rest", "Spoons", "Work", "Labor", "Rhythm", "Rituals", "Sleep", "Boundaries", "Naming" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/growth-statuses-continued", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/growth-statuses-continued", "title": "Growth Statuses, Continued", "content_html": "Back in February, I wrote about hitting the wall of scale concerning tags on my site.
\nThis is the next step.
\nI've added the growth statuses to all the pages, while refactoring and merging templates to ultimately have more a unified data structure.
\nI've made each of the statuses:
\nThis works great for statuses of publication, but I'm finding what's working well—for me—in means of writing & production.
\nI'm typically using my /journal for initial thoughts that I want to get through, as well as an actual journal. I do the same with /articles and /essays, but because they're in different physical views, via the Kirby Dashboard, I don't actually tend to them as much as I want. I haven't looked at my /books in a long while, and that's what I ultimately want to grow towards.
\nThe next phase here, then, should be limited statuses per each content type.
\nOne of those AuDHD things.
\nSpecifically, seeking to Name the way an autistic trait of rigid thinking and its interaction with the ADHD impulsiveness.
\nBoth are challenges in executive functioning. A spectrum, if you will.
\nAuDHD is an embodiment the conceptually conflicting comorbidity.
\nIt's inconsistent consistency.
\nIt's planned flexibility.
\nIt's improvisational rigidity.
Typography. Batch Writing. Short and sweet.
\n3 ‽ Things
\n2 ? Things
\n1 ! Thing
Covering:
\nTypography
\nWeb Typography
\nLetterpresses
\nPrinting
I have a monthly newsletter, Craft & Practice.
\nTypically, it's an update about the state, progress, thoughts, reflections of my various crafts and practices.
\nI want to engage with readers more, being more interactive with people. In the style of Mike Monterio's weekly question answering, I plan to make something in the middle—a fortnightly pitch.
\nI want to ask people what they wanna read about. Then respond.
\nI want to be able to ask questions, as invitations. Sharing something I'm asking myself and am curious about responses. Sometimes, to give voice to and put out into the world—as a note, in a bottle, in a super hurricane, in a boiling ocean.
\nI want to establish a regularly scheduled hour of writing for that week's newsletter. Then, having multiple newsletters with different audiences but the same, weekly, time-flowing rhythm. This and another new one—exclamaquest.news—should cover most of them.
\nCall them wayseeking asks or prompts.
\nSo—I sought synonyms for request, sifting through warrens of potential.
\nPitch.
\nThere are so many exciting definitions.
\nThis is a work in progress. I'm writing it in public and updating it as I continue writing.
\nI've been wanting to develop my boilerplate for a long while now. I'm at a point where I keep reinventing and trying to figure out the things and would rather work from a boilerplate to decrease the amount of decisions I make each project onset.
\nNaming is one of the most important things of a design system. It needs to be consistent, but flexible; declarative, but not prescriptive.
\nThese days, primitives is a relatively standard nomenclature for this group of tokens. I, personally, don't like that word to define them. There are too many definitions that can create ambiguity or mis-frame their import.
Collectively, I like to call it the foundation. These tokens are what everything's built on—adding meaning as compositions emerge by adding style to semantic structure. These also need to be the smallest, simplest variable names for ease of re-use and development (when getting much farther along the system creation, token names tend to get lengthy). I'm one for typographpical poetry of length, so if the foundations are the smallest units with the shortest names, they're quickly identifiable, understandable, and rememberable.
\nThese are ones that I'll always use, but are singular in words:
\n--paper for white, and developing tints;--ink for black, and developing shades;--ash for gray, and developing tones. A prefix is something at the beginning. In grammar, these are remixable, contextual preambles like re-, con-, or pre-.
\nThese are the first words of my boilerplate's token set:
\n--font- for font-family;--scale- for font-size;--stretch for font-width;--style- for font-style;--weight- for font-weight;--tracking- for letter-spacing;--stroke- for border-width;--leading- for line-height;--opacity- for...well, opacity values;--palette- for base colors;--duration- for transition and animation timings;--radii- for border-radius (and the fun of using two i's in a row);--space- for padding, margin, and gap;--measure- for max-width and typographic line-length;--layer- for z-index; --ratio- for aspect-ratio;--prominence- for box-shadow;For some of these, I use explicit values. For others, semantic gradients.
\nIt depends on how the token's purpose and relationship with it's property counterpart.
\nEach of these are the typical ones I come across in most settings.
\nThey're also grounded in generic font family naming, just a limited set. In total, there're 12 potential generic font families to use, but these four tend to cover most of my use cases (and identity systems).
\n:root{\n --font-sans: $stack, sans;\n --font-serif: $stack, serif;\n --font-mono: $stack, mono;\n --font-hand: $stack, cursive;Most of my design decisions boil down to typographic history and practical use.
\nThese are, generally, named for their typical weight naming scheme, respectively mapped to their default weights. Because variable fonts provide a plethora of potential values, having these as tokens rather than defaults enables depth of polish.
\n:root{\n --weight-thin: 100;\n --weight-extralight: 200;\n --weight-light: 300;\n --weight-regular: 400;\n --weight-medium: 500;\n --weight-semibold: 600;\n --weight-bold: 700;\n --weight-extrabold: 800;\n --weight-black: 900;Like weight, this has default values but can be set differently in variable font situations.
\nThese map to another typical font design for typeface widths, developed over the centuries to give semantic name to width.
\n:root{\n --stretch-ultra-con: ultra-condensed; /* 50% width */\n --stretch-extra-con: extra-condensed; /* 62.5% width */\n --stretch-con: condensed; /* 75% width */\n --stretch-semi-con: semi-condensed; /* 87.5% width */\n --stretch-reg: normal; /* 100% width */\n --stretch-semi-exp: semi-expanded; /* 112.5% width */\n --stretch-exp: expanded; /* 125% width */\n --stretch-extra-exp: extra-expanded; /* 150% width */\n --stretch-ultra-exp: ultra-expanded; /* 200% width */Measure is the fancy typography word for length of a line of text, specifically from the left to right edges of a text block. In terms of reading length, it's good to aim for 45–85 characters per line, inclusive of spaces.
\nThe primary aspects that influence measure are: size of the type and size of its container (be it block, like a section, or a unit, like a paragraph).
\n:root{\n --measure-xxs: 25ch;\n --measure-xs: 35ch;\n --measure-sm: 45ch ;\n --measure-md:55ch ;\n --measure-lg: 65ch;\n --measure-xl: 75ch ;\n --measure-xxl: 85ch;--scale- for font-size;--style- for font-style;--tracking- for letter-spacing;--leading- for line-height;--opacity- for...well, opacity values;--palette- for base colors;--duration- for transition and animation timings;--radii- for border-radius (and the fun of using two i's in a row);--ratio- for aspect-ratio;--stroke- for border-width;--space- for padding, margin, and gap;--prominence- for box-shadow--layer- for z-index; I've written about semantic gradients before, making lists, and compiling them. They're these cool relational word ladders that transition from one end of a spectrum to another.
\nI prefer these over numbering systems—100,200,300,400,... or 10,20,30,40,...—because words. I find the lack of explicit and definite number scale provides room for play, interpretation, but also ways of individualizing the scale to act as a trap street—a maker's mark to detect copyright violations (and, as is the case these days, detecting content was used as fodder for scrapers and large language model training).
Each of the prefixes, above, come with default semantics—gradient or otherwise. I'm thematically grouping them for ease of reading.
", "date_published": "2026-03-04T00:00:00-05:00", "tags": [ "Boilerplate", "Design Tokens", "CSS" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/webinar-workshop-inspiration", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/webinar-workshop-inspiration", "title": "Webinar & Workshop Inspiration", "content_html": "This comes from Wendy Sellers' webinar on March 6th, 2026, Neurodivergent Conditions and Employee ADA Rights: What HR Needs to Know.
\nI can't attend, just from the expense, but it sounds extremely interesting. What struck me, from Career IO's newsletter, was the structure & format of the outline. This post preserves the description, and analyses how it's structured.
\nOverall, it's separated into five:
\nBecause it's it's important to understand what this pricing is like, I'm listing those out here for further use, myself:
\n- $179 — Live Session\n- $199 — Recording\n- $229 — Digital Download\n- $199 — Transcript (PDF)\n- $999 — Corporate Live 1–10 Attendees\n- $349 — Live + Recording\n- $349 — Recording + Transcript\n- $399 — Digital Download + Transcript\n", "date_published": "2026-03-03T00:00:00-05:00", "tags": [ "Workshops", "Writing", "Inspiration", "Speaking", "Template", "Webinar" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/poet-scribes-2021-offer-development", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/poet-scribes-2021-offer-development", "title": "Poet & Scribe's 2021 Offer Development", "content_html": "Description
\nDid you know that an estimated 15–20% of the global population is neurodivergent? That means millions of employees experience the workplace through a different lens—bringing with them unique cognitive strengths such as hyper-focus, pattern recognition, and creative problem-solving. Yet, despite their potential, neurodivergent individuals are often overlooked or misunderstood in professional environments.
\nThis webinar is designed to help HR professionals and workplace leaders better understand neurodivergent conditions and how to navigate both the legal requirements and practical strategies for supporting these employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
\nIn this fast-paced and myth-busting session, we’ll explore the legal framework around neurodivergent conditions and disability status, demystify the interactive accommodation process, and offer real-world guidance on how to support neurodivergent team members without putting your organization at risk. You'll learn how inclusion isn’t just a compliance box to check—it’s a smart business decision that can unlock exceptional talent across your workforce. Plus, we’ll walk through specific scenarios, provide take-home toolkits, and highlight what to avoid in interviews, reviews, and employee conversations.
\nAgenda Includes:
\n\n
\n- Framing the Conversation – A quick dive into the evolving language around neurodivergence, and why this matters right now for employers.
\n- Neurodivergence 101: Beyond Buzzwords – Definitions, real-world examples, and what neurodivergent strengths look like in the workplace.
\n- The ADA & You: Legal Responsibilities Decoded – Understand how the ADA applies to neurodivergent conditions, including interactive process best practices and accommodation scenarios.
\n- Creating a Culture of Inclusion (Not Just Compliance) – How to make space for different brains without reinventing the wheel—or alienating your team.
\n- Common Pitfalls HR Should Avoid – Ask your burning questions and learn what not to say in performance reviews, interviews, or accommodation talks.
\n- Wrap-Up & Resources – Takeaways, toolkits, and where to go from here.
\nYour Benefits for Attending:
\n\n
\n- Gain a clear understanding of the ADA’s legal framework as it applies to neurodivergent employees
\n- Learn how to recognize and implement reasonable accommodations before issues escalate
\n- Identify and leverage the strengths of neurodivergent individuals to improve team performance and innovation
\n- Discover proactive inclusion strategies that don’t require overhauling your organization
\n- Avoid common HR pitfalls that can lead to legal or relational complications
\n- Access takeaway resources, toolkits, and real-world examples for continued learning
\nAttending this webinar will empower you to confidently support neurodivergent employees, helping you create a more inclusive workplace while mitigating legal risk.
\nWho Should Attend:
\nHR professionals, people managers, team leaders, compliance officers, and anyone responsible for employee well-being or workplace policy enforcement.
\n
When your company needs more authentic paths to achieve your goals. These essential elements differentiate, define, connect, and create how your business lives in the world.
\nCo-created Deliverables:
\nPut to paper a narrative that shows & tells your uniqueness. Develop insight, structures, and flows that provides flexible stability towards your goals, with strong foundations.
\nCo-created Deliverables:
\n\n\nTesting out writing in Obsidian to check out the way of writing here to see if to invest time in doing the back and forth personally through obsidian with Kirby.
\n
I've been thinking about throughlines since December, when Active Voice announced their January conference, Throughline.
\nThe week-of, I wrote about typography as one of my throughlines.
\nThat days-of were filled with volunteering, listening, absorbing; participating, learning, and being, with community.
\nThe week-after was filled with simmering contemplation while building anticipation for its after-party.
\nThe after-party was a week after, coming together again for sharing the brain-wrinkling, tack-sticky outcomes of the week-after's reflection.
\nThe week-after the after-party is one of action.
The theme of one event today was action—specifically, at what point have you gathered enough information & research?
\nThe truck: train yourself to hear that satisfying*click* as abstract transitions towards something.
Erika Hall used that in Just Enough Research; reading those words in my week-after's contemplation. She gave the opening keynote at Throughline: The Business Model is the Grid.
\nIt was the first time I would her speak.
\nPart of an effective, regular body doubling practice—for me—are sharing goals for next time we meet.
\nIt's accountability-building and expectation-sharing that's extremely valuable. Also things like implementation intentions, giving voice to things, and soundboarding with Others is effective.
\nOne person asked: so, what's your Throughline?
\nA personal goal, after each conference I go to (or event) is to write down what I've taken away from it and how it'll stick with me. And I've been meaning to write properly about this conference.
\nTwo birds.
\nSome of the takeaways of the conference, minified:
\nI've been slowly building them up, it it's time to formally \"launch\" everything. Last year I was building my personal infrastructure. This year, I'm using it.
\nThere's a few bounds as we continually work to Name the things we do. Digital gardening has a few:
\nGardening is supposed to be one of those things that prolongs ones life.
\nMy goal is to approach my site—jonathanstephens.us—my digital garden, in-kind.
\n[^1 I always enjoy that moment where they say the name of the movie or show in the thing itself. I may make that a stylistic thing of mine]
\nThis garden acts as the thing that connects all the other things. Its the trunk that grows branches, stemming from wonderings & wanderings, or things seeking to be Named.
It's my writing practice.
\nIt's my little plot on the Internet where I collect, create, and iterate while showing the messiness of it all. Kinda-sorta like community gardens where space is shared.
\nThats why its structured the way it is.
\nThe first of my garden's boundaries are mostly conceptual:
\nAll the brands and their identities are evidence of my throughlines and styles:
\nGreen for more natural growth
\nContinue the metaphor of growth, but also combination and meeting things together shown in these fonts.
WEB Du Bois
\nI've been tinkering on understanding & wrangling my website's tags the past months. The majority come from the 1.5k sites I've gathered on my /links page. I've intentionally taken a more Tumblr-way of tagging.
\nHowever, as my garden's grown, I've needed to find a way for people to navigate it. The best way—a more \"fun\" way of navigating around a website, and a digital garden—by meandering around its tags.
\nI've set out doing this through spreadsheets and have been having challenges with the sheer amount of data. I recently discovered the more practical use of Observable—I had known about notebooks but never had the opportunity or path to push towards playing there—data analysis.
\nBy using Observable, I've been able to explore, understand, and make the data much clearer in terms of what I'm dealing with when wranglin' it all. It's also been an interesting way of learning Javascript: each function and variable is set and accessed by each section of code, so it helps me understand what and how Javascript is all put together. It is their own flavor, but it's been a huge help.
\nOne of the things that's clear is the need to normalize my tag set a bit—especially when it comes to specific terms.
\nWith my current style of tagging, ICE wouldn't be aligned with Immigration & Customers Enforcement...so if I tagged something with FUCK ICE it wouldn't be caught or appropriately aligned. This led to the question: to abbreviate or to not abbreviate.
If I just abbreviated, someone would have to know what UX or AI is. Which, if people are coming here to read that sorta thing because we're in a shared community, I'd be comfortable with doing that. However, since this garden spans many different topics around many different things, someone coming from the more AuDHD or neurodivergent community spaces, that knowledge may be lacking (and vice versa; to'n'fro;).
If I just wrote them out, then I'd miss on the whole SEO of it all, and the speed & ease of typing UI and tagging correctly.
I could write it out as United States of America (USA) as the full tag, which works great in quite a few ways. However, that's a lot for screen-readers and whatnot in terms of repetitiveness if I have something on front end web development and all its abbreviations:
It becomes a lotta words quick. I do like it though.
\nI guess that would be the most accessible way.
", "date_published": "2026-02-09T00:00:00-05:00", "tags": [ "Accessibility", "Content Tags", "Taxonomy", "Wayfinding" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/new-york-signage-and-vernacular", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/new-york-signage-and-vernacular", "title": "New York Signage and Vernacular", "content_html": "An event by Type Electives.
\nHe learned how to paint signs in 2010. trying focus on the
\nSteven Powers
\nJames & Carla Murray
Noble Signs is a counter to thigns. Design with context and inspiration of the local earea. Design not trying to reflect self and personal test, but capturing the iconic new york style and multiply it back into the streetscape
\nhandmade signs in the 20th century
\nhad a quality of personality and flavor.
\npart of a shared collective identiyt
\nvernacular is the native language or dialect of a specific group of people.
\na vernacular is learned locally, from person to person, observing the world around you.
sign shops used to use the more apprentice systems novides, etc.
\nbold lettering
\nprimary colors
\nalphabets designed for speed,
\nneed to be produced fast
\nneed to be sent into the crows
\nneed to be able to read it.
What is hte new york style beyond what you just see it?
\nwhat defines the aesthetic of the \"old new york\"
gradulaly become where he is over 15 years.
\ndesigners, artists, archivists, crafsppeople, now near 15 people.
\nas extension of this mission, established a New York Sign musuem. A non-pforit archive, gallery, and living art project dedicated to preserving and educating people about the city's lettering, advertising, signage and cultural traditions.
started saving signs to study them and to counter cultural erasure hapepning around.
\nalmost an act of protest done out of emotional necessity. from that pain of seeing something beautiful being cast asigde. the feeling of you rheart dropping into your stomach when you walk past a storefront htat had a beautiful sign and one day it's gone.
\nwhat's emerged is that these signs meant ot us all and what they repsresent ad a human level.
\nhandmade signs and storefronts define lived experience as new yorkers, bringing meaning to dialy lives. when walkn gout the doore very day to see these disgns made by your neighbors for your eihbors, it creates a feeling of bleonging and of neighboorhd itself.
\nSide by side: inspiration and the sign they made. (have photo).
\nsigns invite you fin, becomeing visual markers of our communities, landmarks, meeting places, hung on venues ofr cleebrations abig and small.
\nsigns are symbols. they express community identity. history and local pride. when we lose them we really do lose a part of who we are.
hand letttering is imbue with some quality of the preson who made it.
\nand in this way our venacular letting contains all sorts of big boisterous new york personalities.
the broader visual vernacular of new york streetscape shows a hared respect for restraint not wasting each other's time. its' direct, yet playful and inviting. it makes us feel like we're home. and ;that feeling means something.
\nNoble Signs is multidisciplianmry creative studio base din NYC
\nMission as studyio: creat storefronts, brand identities, and artowrks that speak to history and the present moment. WE want NYC to continue to have a nunique visual identty and by keeping these local styles alive, we hope to create a positive affect in place where we live and work.
\nexists in response to shifts in tech, culture, design trends in urban environment. by design as a live medium than an aeesthetic product. into cultural practice.
\nexperimental preseveration. social intervention. public space manufacturing. cultural participen.
\nWe design within contxt, not within vacuum. a
\ndesign and collectiv ememory to meet, to remiagine craft as a living situatiod act.
\nhyperlocal design thinking to light a path towards a better future.
\ndeeply research-based. process always begins with pencil, but uses all modern tos (archive of signage, publication, etc).
\nCraft itself can be a living situated act, mateirals themsevles carry meaning. We favort bespoke technicques. not just because they look better, but becaues the skileld touch that they require naturally ibues the work with the humanity of the craftspeople that made them.
\nable to channel NYC vernaculatr into work in both inspiration/application. designs inspired by history, created by hand to maintain the human connection that can only come from a person. when you do lettering by hand, you're tapping int the moment that you do it in, but tapping into all the hours tha tyou've built building that craft and building that practice. it's perceivable in the work. part of human nature hta tmakes us repsnod to that.
\nsomeone spetn time doing, we really when we see wosmething like that, it makes us feel a connection.
\nwhile we do recontextualize reference points into new concepts, it's our way of cintuinuing a thread that goes thorugh.
\nfind a touchpoint that speaks in a meanutiful way,
\nstarted on facebook marketplace
\nsaw the civil service book shop for sale
\nby the time they decided they did want it, it had already been sold.
he missed out, but kept thinking about it. but a city councilmen reached out to them to create a sign for his office. he gave complete creative control, he loved it.
\nset out with the proces. use every tool at disposal to offer the owrk that has personality, character, handcraft, done in the most efficient way possible.
\nmaking it as accessible as possible. seeing how they concept the work from thumbnail to digitization.
\npresenting \"color-ups\" and how they do things.
\nan opportunity to look at old signshop sketches. that's hwo they present color markups.
if doing all thse by hands, it's easier to colorize a small segment. Tehre's a benefit towards working like this as it requires the client to engage their imagination a littleb it.
\nsharing work as color up for things to shareing to help ipcturing the idea of being made by hand, not just something designed digitally then hit print.
\nonce approved direction, go into production.
\nthey work with a method called pouncing. a technique that dates back to renaissance. you're basically perforating paper with tiny holes, then using chalk dust through them to transfer onto a substrate that then gets transfered to a panel to paint, without having to print onto the panel onto that.
\nlove the boldness of the sign,
\nfor something like this, people typically think of single stroke painting (start with single strokes, letter off the brush, let the brush dictake the forms). when talking about NYC, it's all large format, so it's first drawn and then bsuehd to render. the brush doesntdictate the form.
\nwith the inset panels, they did freehand the letters off a sekeleton. whenever they can they do try to bring in free-hand touch.
\napproached by a bakery opening a second location who wanted to use Glaser's Bakeshop as the inspiration and create a homage to the shop for their new locatin.
\nthis one was in a landmark historic district. now in their 13th year in NYC, they've been through this many times. They've figured out how they talk to Landmark Preservation in terms of how to get these things done.
\nSometimes there's a disconnect. It's hard to say \"we wanna do these signs that're historically rooted, but we're rooting in the 1950s, but the building was built in the 1890s\"
\nlandmarks/historic preservation want to speak to when the building was built, but new york history is layered and ocmplex. it's not statica nd is fluid. the overlaying of different eras in one storefront makes it more interesting.
\nhave honed th etechnicque in how they present to a histoirical committtee.
\nclassically, nyc signs would use all the space that could be taken...the guidelines they received back was that they need to be width of storefront, but centered on teh building, and not picking up the thing. then presented a robust presentation of why they didn't want to do what they suggested. got hte width they wantd and, in the same process, did hand sketches,
\nteh sign, in terms of preservation, needed a lot of work and outside of the capabilities and not enough space, themselves.
\nreally unique letterforms and construction.
\nmost neon signs are on a cabinet or raceway. these are channeled with stainless steel cans (a raceway is a thin strip vs. a panel that all the lettering is on)
they created the raceway then put the type on a ledge to have it on top (and dimensionality).
\ntherew as a veselka, a lcoal business in brooklyn,
\none thing they love about what htey made is how many people see it. there's something about putting work into the worl dhtat'll impact so many people whethere they pay attention or not. it's going to be come a landmark in their neighborhod, on their commute, etc. with such a wonderful legacy/product/all and in a location that it'll be seen by so many people.
\nsubject forward sign (the top down on a stand)
\nWith Noble Signs, their hope is that htey have this spasce where they ahve a studio and a shop and two teams working in both locations but they keep them interconnected in many ways.
\nbsasically whoever works there, regardless of team, will have some connection/knowledge/work together/collaborate on every major project.
\nits' really lacking in society now, where we so often design things, job them out to vendors, and whoever has the lowest bid. tehre are
\nwhen you separate design and manufacturing in a signicantway, you lose that connectivity that allows you to make something that's really special and unique. we're able to have physical objects that are really grounded in humanity. with the people tha tmde them having connection in alls teps of the process. you're able to tap into something that's oteherwise really ahrd to gran oneto.
\nartsists and designers work together under one roof, pushing fowrad creatively, innovating, with craftspeopole/trades/makers working together hand-in-hand, two arms, working together to make thigns atha re spectactular.
\nour goal is to scratch at that greatness that w dsee in the work that inspires us so much.
\nSince the sign industry was a haven for artistic talent, since the vinyl plotter in teh 19890s you conln't work at a sisgn shop. most people enter the trafde at lowest level, earning stripes with pnning na engles queue.
\nlettering needed to look decent. you either had to hire a sign papinter/leter or do it yourself.
\nCan stare with wodner at a handwritten letter. they weren't showing off, but the muscle memory kicked in. the proof was right there in the letters and how beautiful they were.
\nIn their hayday, there was nothing lgamoursou about painting. in mid-20th century, sign painters were even referered to as lettering mechanics. which shows how the trade was regarded. if you knew how to drive it was a good way to make a living.
\nhe randomly found out his great grandpa and great-great-granpda were sign painters too. he said they made all sorts of signs, and found out later (4-5 years after).
\nonly in hindsight can we look back with wonder at what people were capable of back then.
\nultimately becoming proficient at lettering ies less about talent and more about putting the time in to get it right. much like playing an instrument, it's achallenge that requires hours and hours of prsactice.
\nit pays dividends, with a deep meditative quality that comes from doing skilled handwork. whether it's letttering, fabrication, orany ype of craft.
\nthere's a conficende that comes from learning how to letter. a mind body connection and a blieve with yourself in your own ability that transcends the medium into other aspects of your life. if interested, highly recommend it.
\nevery designer would benefit from direct involvement in the production process of the work they create. when culture was more local, you might have had the ability to visit a press or factory in your city or neighboorhood. economic realities make things very complex.
\nin spite of that they're still pushing towards that model.
\nBeen a collector his hwole life. once paying attention to old signs he couldn't stop.
\nhas objects, ephemera, and publications that showcase the diverse vernacular lettering syltess of NYC advertising.
\ninspire artisans to expand upon the craft and preserve signs as toosl for design education, storytelling, and reclaiming the visual language of place in the face of accelerating globalization.
\nWhen taking down their sign, they found an even older sign from the 50's showing the italian roots of the neighborhood in Bensonhurst. Able to save that too, but bittersweet.
\njust brought into museum; the family saved hte signs when closing from panedmic; and were able to record their story. are working on a piece to share over the next few months. very intresting stuff.
\nmultiple companies had used the building, but wanted to keep the sign up even if it chagnes. they were able to keep the sign and all the lettering/all. some day they'll plan to recreate and fully restuore this sign.
\nZuiflacht
\nAnother big coree neon. The longest side is 40ft wide. It was a day's project.
\nweren't able to save the projecting box. projecting boxes are grandfathered in. so they remade the box and restored it to its original color.
\nAs we save more and more signs, we go deeper and deeper intot he question fo what is lost., eroding shared urban experience.
\nvernacular signs hold our collectiv ememory. visually, culrturally, emotionally, and they contains tories both known/unkown stretching across generations.
\nthe loss is more than aesthetic. these visual markers of humanity carry our sense of community and without the our emotional connection to the urban evironment is weakened and depleted entirely.
\nHow design can function as a carrier of linearge and, with lettering, is an experesiosn of collective identity.
\nnew york venratular is a direct response to itself, informed by architecture
\nmost stores are set with 14, 18, 20, and 22feet. bandasa bove manay storefronts.
\nsigns typcially made by 9 thin sheet metal on rigid frames.
\nsigns post 1970 are mounted on a lume square tube, which same mehtod sued to make signs today
the gold trim letters on alumnimum top sign may be the defining signage type of the late 20th century of new york city. it's essneitallly a thin piece of metal with a frame around it wrapped around a metal subsructure then slapped on the building.
\nAmerican Sign Musuem in Cicncinatti.
\nIt's affordablle
\nClear subject for an emphasis and focus on legibility
\nyou. know instantly what the business sells with it. the sign tells you everything you need to know. there's a certain humiility.sujbect emphasis has replaced with brand emphasis. now everyone hads a logo and a brand. but they do'tn tell you about the business or what it does.
signs are a communicaiton method and if you're not communicating what the busines sis doing clearly, it's not a successful as a sign.
\nwhen design decisions were left to signmakers, there was a clear consessu on what the sign should do. tell you waht the business sales.
\nthere's a certain decency in telling people that you do in such simple terms, creating a feeling of inclusiveity.
\nwhen a sign says restraing you know you sshould go there to eat. with opaque identities, it feels like a litmus test. then it becomes you just keep walking.
\nwhen you have an etnire aventue with every business comunicating what it does, it feels more like a community.
\nEvery shop felt like a community space.
\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/realestate/sesame-street-design-over-the-years.html
\nBeyond type and format, there are nuances of the local newyork style. been tryign to dodify it.
\ntypically sans serif, bold, condensed, typically geometric sans (letting built off a square or rectangle)
\ncurve of letters like B, C, O, S, P, aren't perfect ovals (traditional american sign painting) but more industrial/maodular.
First reas: speed and efficiency. easer to each an apprecntic ehow to brush letter off the square.
\nstraight lines are fast and curves take more time.
\nthe top sign formati in NY is so effective because it's easily adaptable to many different widths. geometrci sans-serif lettering has the same quality. it can be easilye extended or conednesed. you can simply extend the lettering as needed, and can results in csome comically squished or extended lettering.
\nAS a result of their usefulness, they proliferated locally, and becoming ubiquitous. that's how vernacular lettering takes off. it's in the streetscape around you and you copy/bring it into your own work.
\nAlso used in transit signage which coul dhave been par tof it.
\nnew york has a unique modular geometric ssytle. a directness and a focus on legibility. it all cuts through all the flair and to get to the point.
\ntehre're many, and as you get into smaller lettering, you get into single stroke.
\nthe other style is more \"chisel lettering\" that's more calligraphic. it's more about speed and can be painted really rapidly and such.
vernacular style
\nbold, streamlined
\neconomy of space.
\na bauhaus approach: you don't see wasted space on classic NYC signs.
\naren't any significant unneccessary decorative elemtns. eveyr elemnt is a function of cummnication. realistate is valuable so it's maximized.
color used in a simlar fashion.
\nprimary colors big.
\nyellow is particularly there, espcially for the yellow. yellow base with red/blue/green/orange was popularizeeby dominican american signmakers who brough ti from their home country and corner stores.
also coul have built from the whole existing design lagngue becuase it grabs people attentions.
\nyellow's great color for signmaking, because any color on yellow can still get good contrast. it may feel childish, but primary colors are a way to do it.
\nit may be clean/contermporary but it's never colr or strerile.
\nit's tstraightrforward enough to eappeal to everybodyw ithout ever feeling it bloongs to only some.
\nminimalsim remains cruicial, but authenticity and warmth has become the most sought-after value as a counter to increasingly homogenized and mass-rproduced ociety.
\nit shows us a model for hwo we can bring personality back into our visual world of modernity.
\nthere's an absence of character and humanity that it's forced on us, the visual culture of sameness and banality. hopign to codify vernacular into something knowalbe, teachable, accessible, that continues to resonate an continues to evolve.
\nMuseum's expanding reach into otehr initiatives. just launching oral history projects and interviewing not just signmakers but business owners and neighborhood residencets. documeting these stories is really key to the mission. as craftspeople as designers, we appreciate the artistic value/beauty/worhty of preservation...but the stories they hold, the storeis of real new yorkers, and what these places meant to them, tells an even more universal and pwerful message.
\nthere're few things tha bring more personal fulfillment than working with your hands, especially when its inservie with your neighbors.
\nwhile signs like this may not be coming back anytime soon, we can still cahnnel something equality spectacular.
\ndesign can reflecthow we see ourselves, neightobrs, and community.
\nit can reflect something bigger and a be a conduit for everythign we love about living in new york. its diversity, messiness, boldness. it's not about nostaligia, but being steawards toward ssomething reater of our shared memories and our irreplaable collective cutlure.
\nas designers we all have the ability to engage in the act of preservation and engae in how our design speaks to the place that we live and work. Wherever you are int he owrld, consider designing with context adn the responsibility we have as designers. it'ss a responsiblity that should not be taken lightly because when you put work into the world in that way, people are going to see it whetere they want to see it or not.
\ndo you accept volunteers at the museum? YES.
\nTo do so, send them an email. Always looing for volunteers.
Templates are the containers for each individual
\nTemplate parts are smaller sections of content that can be included in one or more templates, e.g. for things like <header>, <footer>, <aside>. Think of them as top-level templates.
In the file structure, they can't be nested.[^ Template parts – Theme Handbook | Developer.WordPress.org. (2023, October 26). WordPress Developer Resources. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/templates/template-parts/#organizing-template-parts]
\nTemplate parts are dynamic, use slug-based references.
\nPatterns are static, reusable design elements that allow content changes while locking design elements, thus can't be edited through the interface. Before Wordpress 6.3 (now at 6.9), patterns used to be called reusable blocks[^ Comparing patterns, template parts, and synced patterns (Reusable blocks). (2023, August 8). Documentation. https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/comparing-patterns-template-parts-and-reusable-blocks/]
\nThey can be small atoms all the way to full pages. Each pattern (or component) should follow the single responsibility principle.
\nSynced are stored in the database and (when content, style, or structure changes) all patterns are updated, so a pattern can be updated once and applied everywhere. If a synced pattern is changed in the visual site editor, all the instances of that will change. [^ Synced Patterns (Reusable blocks). (2026, January 9). Documentation. https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/reusable-blocks/#demonstration-of-the-reusable-block]
\nUnsynced are not stored in the database. They're self-contained. They can be singular patterns themselves, or be synced patterns that were detached, becoming unsynced instances.
\nblockTypes registration. post-type specific pattern need.main area changes. There are a few variations—group, row, stack, grid—of different layout block types—constrained and flow.
\nMost helpful would be using constrained parents with flow children, if constrained parents are needed—a combination of them all.
\nflex-flow directions, with row being horizontal and stack being vertical. Very useful for pattern type things. grid layouts. Wordpress has three default image sizes:
\ntheme.jsonEverything set here determines what's available in the block editor panel. Surface styles, colors, background images, font choices, typographic metrics, flow & space sizes. Each of the things that are related to size are named with label and value representation. If the size is explicit, it's shown (e.g. 1rem). If it's more variable, the size is not shown as helper text (e.g. if value is clamp(min, bounds, max)).
\n\nOur open data program is a natural extension of the National Gallery’s mission: to welcome all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity.
\nWe aim to make as much data as possible available to as many people as possible, in support of research, teaching, and personal enrichment. We believe that increased access to factual data about works of art fuels knowledge, scholarship, and innovation, inspiring uses that transform the way we discover and understand the world of art.
\nYou can download the dataset of factual art object information for the 130,000+ artworks and artists in our collection from Github. We release this data under a Creative Commons 0 (CC0) license. This means that you can download the full dataset free of charge, and without seeking our permission.
\n
URL: nga.gov/artworks/free-images-and-open-access
\n\n\nWelcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to more than 5.1 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
\n
URL: si.edu/openaccess
\n\n\nThe Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to offer free, unrestricted use of over 50,000 images of works in the collection believed to be in the public domain or to which the museum otherwise waives any copyright it might have. Such images are made available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation and the Terms and Conditions of this website.
\n
URL: artic.edu/open-access/open-access-images
\n\n\nArtBee aggregates [public domain access collections from museums] into one searchable platform, making it easier to discover and download high-quality public domain artworks.
\n
URL: artbee.org
\n\n\nExplore our hand-picked collection of 10,919 out-of-copyright works, free for all to browse, download, and reuse. This is a living database with new images added every week.
\n
URL: pdimagearchive.org
\n\n\nThe links below provide access to images that are in the public domain or have been made available for reuse and can likely be used in for small run scholarly publications and theses free of charge. Always check the rights statement associated with each image to make sure that you are abiding by the terms of use, which may include a specific format for the credit line.
\n
URL: libguides.pratt.edu/c.php
\n\n\nA round-up of museums and archives that have released high resolution images into the public domain
\n
URL: apollo-magazine.com/open-access-image-libraries-a-handy-list
\n\n\nThe Digital Art History Directory (DAHD) is an open-access publication containing a database of digital art history projects and information on data sources, best practices in Digital Art History project construction, preservation, and web archiving. Intended to be the largest, most comprehensive, and inclusive collection of information on Digital Art History and to function as a tool and living resource, rather than a static publication, the DAHD provides a platform for discovery, sharing, and research of Digital Art History.
\n
URL: dahd.hcommons.org/open-image-collections
\n\n\nOn this site you’ll find links to my Public Domain Print Shop, as well as posts for DIY tutorials, thrifting tips, my favorite books I’m reading, updates on our most recent home renovations and a little bit of real life sprinkled in along the way. Thanks for visiting my little corner of the internet and I hope you enjoy your stay!
\n
\n\nAfter spending thousands of hours sourcing free public domain art for The Public Domain Print Shop, I’ve learned a thing or two about where to find the best public domain art online.
\n
URL: ahomeisannounced.com/2025/04/17/best-public-domain-art-online
", "date_published": "2026-02-01T00:00:00-05:00", "tags": [ "Resource", "Public Domain", "Inspiration", "Free", "Creative Commons" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/growth-statuses", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/growth-statuses", "title": "Growth Statuses", "content_html": "Last year, I focused on establishing my digital garden.
\nNow that I actively use it—in writing, sharing resources, portfolio development, professional branding—I need a way to easily facilitate cultivating my garden.
\nI'm doing this by implementing growth statuses.
\nMaggie Appleton's garden initially hooked me into gardening metaphor. I've read and re-read her Garden History essay. The definition she uses to explain what a digital garden is, I find, beautiful:
\n\n\nA garden is a collection of evolving ideas that aren’t strictly organised by their publication date. They’re inherently exploratory – notes are linked through contextual associations. They aren’t refined or complete - notes are published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time. They’re less rigid, less performative, and less perfect than the personal websites we’re used to seeing.
\n
What really struck me was developed pattern language, creating some guiding principles of the digital gardening ethos:
\nWhile seedling, budding, and evergreen work for her digital garden, I want something a bit more granular.
\nI need these statuses to continue iterating on my gardening practice. My site is the one page on the internet I go to most, looking to knock things off on my To Read list, or coming back to thoughts I had documented a bit ago.
\nI'm also hitting the wall of Scale. I have over 2,000 posts written, collated, and tagged It's getting difficult to easily find my way and just tend to my garden.
\nEarlier this week, I was reading the WCAG 3.0—as you do—and what caught my attention were their status levels.
\nAs the web's Content Accessibility Guidelines, the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group works in the open on the process & progress of creating new, planetary standards for an accessible internet experience. Statuses are important—they give clarity on the section's finality, and what sort of feedback or engagement the working group's seeking at that stage.
\nThey have five distinct statuses:
\n\n\n\n
\n- Placeholder: This content is temporary. It showcases the type of content to expect here. All of this is expected to be replaced. No feedback is needed on placeholder content.
\n- Exploratory: This content is not refined; details and definitions may be missing. The working group is exploring what direction to take with this section. Feedback should be about the proposed direction.
\n- Developing: This content has been roughly agreed on in terms of what is needed for this section, although not all high-level concerns have been settled. Details have been added, but are yet to be worked out. Feedback should be focused on ensuring the section is usable and reasonable, in a broad sense.
\n- Refining: This content is ready for wide public review and experimental adoption. The working group has reached consensus on this section. Feedback should be focused on the feasibility of implementation.
\n- Mature: This content is believed by the working group to be ready for recommendation. Feedback on this section should be focused on edge-case scenarios that the working group may not have anticipated.
\n
The gardening metaphor is my garden's wayfinding throughline; statuses are its scaffolding, supporting fundamental interconnectedness for cultivation.
\nToday, I'm pushing the change to the site with these growth statuses:
\nSown is the placeholder. It's temporarily a seed that's just been planted, showing what sort of content I may want to grow there. Everything's expected to change, it's tender and needs care. Not in a place for any critique. A shitty first draft.
\nSprouting is when something's beginning to form; exploring what it may become. It's not refined, details and definitions may be missing. It has direction, seeking to become.
\nRooting is when its foundations are stabilizing, stronger structures forming, but not all details are completely added or yet to be worked out. The content's more resilient, persistent. It's broadly about usability and coherence; most high-level concerns settled.
\nCrowning is mature enough to be published, focused on feasibility. What needs to be adjusted, to avoid content crown shyness? How can things be tightened up before heading to the more final step?
\nEvergreen is ready and good to go. There may be some light edits and occasional pruning needed, but it's considered complete and in maintenance mode & syndication.
", "date_published": "2026-02-01T00:00:00-05:00", "tags": [ "Growth Statuses", "Digital Gardening", "Garden Colophon" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/lists-of-emotions", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/lists-of-emotions", "title": "Lists of Emotions", "content_html": "I'm currently working on another post that took me down the path of seeking lists of emotions. That took me to discovering various histories of Naming emotions & feelings, and ways of graphically mapping their relationships.
\nThis, a 1997 paper by Alan S. Cowena and Dacher Keltnera from University of California Berkley, found 27 discrete emotions.
\nThe paper was originally received on February 9, 2017, and approved for publication on August 7, 2017. That means, it took:
\nWith the paper is an interactive web artifact, mappipng the plotted emotions to the videos tested with study participants.
\nI make sense of things from collections of details, patterns, recognition, and metaphor.
\nWhen you close your eyes and think of an apple, visualize the apple. See an image there, in your mind's eye? Even an abstract shape or image?
\nI don't see a thing. I don't consider myself to have an \"imagination,\" but am very creative.
\nA thoughtspark can ignite, crackling through 4–10 step associations relation seconds or few. In our house, it's a frequent request, \"wait; just a second. How'd you get here?\" We enjoy the practice in giving shape to the chain, naming the unexpected twists & turns.
\nIt's not, \"first—I thought this, then that, then this other thing\" (linear thinking). It's more: \"first, I thought this. Then I saw that thing and that took me over there. I remembered that over there is sort of related to this other thing, that actually brought me back to this thing.\"
\nOr: I say the same thing every time we pass a thoughtsparkly landmark.
\nAsking questions like, \"do you remember when...?\" sets you up for disappointment, if you always expect an immediate yes. I need to find the path to get to there.
\nWhile working in an office, that may mean \"walking along the floors\" to remember a name, but doing it in an open space. To access the memory of the person's name, I have to travel there, and then I can remember the project because that person was in it.
\nOther times, I forget words like \"team leads\" when presenting to a deparrment's Team Leads...during the Weekly Team Lead Meetings.
\nC'est ma vie.
\nI ask lots of questions, I want to talk things out, but I need to be writing things down to remember and retain anything. It's why I prefer to meet with white boards, and like white boarding things out together.
\nI have a hard time retaining or engaging with audio-only things. My brain just don't work well with it—mostly trying to process what was said and think about it and keeping those thoughts while still trying to focus and listen to what is said.
\nI like fonts, but I like trying to make the words being read the best they can be—spells; containers of Meaning and Power.
\nI pay attention to those tittles and tildes, rivers and widows. For me, fun is learning the history of punctuation. Discovering answers to things like: , where did the idea of \"space between words\" even come from? Which was invented first: the period or the semicolon?
\nLetters give form to meaning, shape to sounds. It's time-travel, enabling human-to-human across time and space. Some create worlds filled of futures and hope. Others destroy, spreading hate and fear.
\nAll with a(n) (in)finite collection of characters—ink to paper. An amazing human innovation with measures & rhythms. Beats and the pace.
", "date_published": "2026-01-30T00:00:00-05:00", "tags": [ ".README", "Personal .README" ] }, { "id": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/what-everyones-making", "url": "https://jonathanstephens.us/journal/what-everyones-making", "title": "What everyone's making", "content_html": "This is the next evolution for the unlaunched Exclamaquest Studio.
\nI need to do something more fun and related towards longer term goals I have in selling posters, crafting fonts, and expanding my design practice outside of the web.
\nThroughline Conference is this week and I'm volunteering, assisting Amy Santee with her \"Find your career throughline\" workshop. With that temporal mindsetting frame, it seems appropriateto name throughline as this week's theme & word of the week.
\nA throughline is, literally, a line that holds together a narrative, all the way through it. You can call them recurring themes, the plot, or purpose of a thing, but throughline gives those words graphic form.
\nExlamaquest was one of the original names proposed for the, now, accepted term for the interrobang punctuation mark (‽). It makes sense, in both cases, that these were proposed, as it's a hybrid of the interrogative question mark and the exclamatory bang mark (bang being a shorthand word for exclamation mark used in typographic & graphic production practices).
\nExclamation has a few different contexts. According to Wordhippo:
\n\n\n\n
\n- A sudden cry or remark expressing surprise, strong emotion, or pain
\n- A loud calling or crying out
\n- A sudden cry or remark expressing surprise, strong emotion, or pain
\n- A spoken word, statement, or vocal sound
\n- A profane or offensive expression used to express anger or other strong emotions
\n
It's an expression of emotion—strong emotion.
\n