Desk of Tobias von Schneider

Embracing Friction — From the Desk of van Schneider — Edition №254

When our persona becomes our prison

You stand out online by having a “thing.” A certain style, a specific voice, a schtick or a skill that catches the eye of a few people and eventually snowballs you into notoriety.

by Tobias van Schneider

The illusion of productivity

"Productivity" is dead.

by Tobias van Schneider

When good is no longer good enough

It wasn’t long ago I’d see a 3D rendering or piece of highly detailed art and feel blown away.

by Tobias van Schneider

Breaking the algorithm

The world wants to tell you what to think about, what to be interested in, what to learn, what to pursue, what to worry about. And it's easier to let it.

by Tobias van Schneider

The best designers are artists

As a young designer, I would have done everything to convince you that designers are not artists.

by Zoe

Tutorial: How to make an illustration & animation portfolio with Carbonmade

Some portfolios look so good, you can't imagine how they did it. They must have hired a developer and worked for hours on the design.

by Tobias van Schneider

What makes me a designer?

This question crossed my mind enough times recently that I went into the DESK archives to find my own answer. To my surprise, there wasn’t one. I’ve never written about it, not until today.

by Tobias van Schneider

Make it invisible

Our approach to building products may seem counterintuitive. Our goal is to make a product so good, you don't think about the product at all.

by Lizzy Spano

They were all over the internet: Images of deep space, revealing thousands of distant galaxies, twinkling in vivid detail. They were beautiful. Full-spectrum color. Never seen before – except they were.

by Surya Anand

Our favorite portfolios launched with Semplice in August 2022

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature on our Showcase. These are the best of the best, chosen by yours truly from hundreds of beautiful submissions