I’ll Get to This When I Get to It | 01

Let's make something immediately clear: I will not be having a new post every Tuesday at 10 AM sharp.

Probably won't have something out every Tuesday. Probably not every week. Potentially not even on a Tuesday.

I know they say consistency is key, and is supposed to be the secret ingredient to having an Online Presence™. I just know that somewhere, a personal-branding expert felt a disturbance in the air. I'm also sure any other algorithm would prefer if I established something three times a week, had a 12-week calendar, and concluded each and every post with a 'okay, now comment your thoughts below!' with some overexcitement that makes you wonder what the blog author had in their morning coffee.

I would rather eat my entire workspace, desk and all.

So, I welcome you to my blog I have named Marginalia.

This is where I’m putting the things that are too long for a caption, too opinionated for a case study, too specific for an About page, and apparently too persistent to remain inside my skull.

This is where I will be putting the stuff that is too opinionated for a case study, too specific for an About page, too long for a caption, and stuff that is so persistent that I just need to talk to someone without making them go insane, so I write it here instead.

You might be asking (or maybe you're not) "what does the word Marginalia mean?"

Well, the name Marginalia comes from the Latin word Marginem. Marginalia is essentially observations, doodles, arguments, notes- whatever I want it to be. Sometimes they're profound. Sometimes they might add a crumb of context, but sometimes they just meant that someone several hundred years ago just wanted someone in the future to know that they had a lot of things they didn't like or agree with.

I greatly respect that.

I would like you to think of this as my digital equivalent.

There will be design here. Branding, advertising, UX, typography, creative direction, internet aesthetics, campaigns I love and ones I might loathe. There might even be a few logos that inspire emotions stronger than any vector should reasonably feel as a well-adjusted adult.

Design does not just happen in a perfectly sealed Figma frame, just like paintings and other forms of art. It responds to everything around it and is influenced by many things.

Fashion changes. So does tech and music. Subcultures are founded, they divide, multiply, get borrowed from, commercialized, renamed, rejected, have a revival, and sometimes return to the people who started them with a $78 price tag.

The internet comes up with a new obsession every five minutes. Dot cakes, polka-dots, gingham, tinned fish on shirts.

Something obscure and often ambiguous might escape the online scene and appear in music videos, advertising, fashion, packaging… all until it eventually becomes something considered 'cringe' and is slapped onto a 75% off throw pillow at TJ Maxx.

In the middle of all of this chaos, somebody has to choose the fonts, the typeface, the color story.

That's the stuff I'm interested in.

A HUGE disclaimer before I start declaring things dead.

What I write here is NOT the whole picture. It couldn't possibly be. It's just the picture from where I am standing.

Culture doesn't move in sync across the world or even the country. There is no giant trend calendar hidden in the stars that makes it be midnight and tells everyone that ballet flats are back, and skinny jeans get the electric chair.

What may feel universal for a 22 year old designer who spends way too much time online can (and probably will) feel completely irrelevant to someone who is fifteen years older.

What may be a tired trend in NYC or LA might still just be up and coming somewhere else. Something that dominates one subculture may barely be perceived outside of it.

Age, location, and income are all factors. Community matters, so does profession. The platforms you're active on matter. The people around you matter.

Another thing that matters, like a lot? The Algorithm.

Two people can live 5 or 10 minutes apart and be part of two completely different versions of the internet.

While my tiktok might try to convince me that everybody on earth has decided to dress like a medieval-era princess or a woodland elf, someone else's feed may suggest that western wear will conquer all of civilization. A third person might be watching slime videos or Twilight in The Sims 4 with the occasional slime video.

I am simultaneously the first and third person.

All three of us technically live in the same culture.

So when I say that something is over, is coming back, getting weird, having a moment, or everywhere.

What I really mean to say is:

I'm seeing it.

Maybe some others are seeing it, too.

Maybe the corners of the culture I pay attention to are seeing it.

Simply, that is because it isn't universal. Even if we like to pretend it is.

I live in the state of Ohio, which has its own lessons in cultural time zones.

If you spend enough time looking at the fashion coming out of Brooklyn, London, LA, or niche online communities then walk around any regular small town in the midwest, you'll see what I lovingly call trend jet lag.

Something can finish the trend cycle online, but be considered 'new' and 'innovative' to wear in a Kroger parking lot somewhere.

Skinny jeans are alive.

Simply Southern shirts are still worn with pride.

Nature is healing, I presume against my wishes.

Before someone from Ohio comes ready to burn me at the stake, I am exaggerating, slightly.

There are many INCREDIBLY creative scenes and people everywhere, including in small-town Ohio. There are also places outside the Midwest where trends move slowly, and there are communities here that are years ahead of whoever reports on the new 'it' trend.

That's the whole point of this tangent. Culture is not linear. It splinters, overlaps, progresses at different speeds.

The lag can be fascinating.

By the time a niche microtrend or label reaches the mainstream, it may have changed meanings completely. Maybe the originators or creators have already moved on due to boredom. Maybe the capitalist mass-produced version will remove the context that made it cool in the first place. Sometimes a watered-down version becomes a thing. Sometimes something that is dismissed as outdated lasts long enough to never really go out of style.

That's why I'm interested in looking at trends instead of just pretending I can give them definitives.

I do NOT want Marginalia to become "THIS IS WHAT GEN Z WANTS BECAUSE I SAY SO".

There are millions of us. We have not universally agreed on anything, and we never will.

Anyways, Back to the Point.

I'm interested in the feedback loop that happens between design and culture. How things we watch, listen to, joke about, buy, wear, and collectively obsess over can become a visual language, and how design turns around, takes a bite out of it and feeds it right back to us.

So YES, there will be pop culture here.

Internet culture, too.

Beauty. Music. Cinema. Advertising. Websites. Packaging. Subcultures, Tech. Fashion. Old campaigns I rediscover at a disgustingly unreasonable hour. New campaigns I wish I hadn't discovered in the first place.

There will be a mention of the zeitgeist, assuming that I can continue to use the word and not becoming a person who is pretentious and completely insufferable.

I have the right to become deeply invested in a visual detail that maybe six other people care about.

I also have the right to change my mind.

Truly, I hope I do.

Not every thought needs to come to me fully formed, professionally laminated and given a 10-slide deck expplaining the strategic implications. Sometimes an observation is interesting because it goes somewhere. Sometimes writing about it is how I figure out where it goes.

What you probably will NOT find here.

I have absolutely no want or need to write stuff like "7 GRAPHIC DESIGN TRENDS THAT WILL DOMINATE 2027".

I won't announce that minimalism is officially dead because three separate maximalist style perfume ads appear on my Pinterest.

I won't claim that an entire generation thinks something because 12 people on TikTok liked my comment.

I cannot and will not promise a groundbreaking discovery or hot take weekly.

And if I ever write "in today's fast paced digital landscape…", just assume that I have been replaced by an EXTREMELY mediocre LLM and call the proper authorities.

What I can promise? Curiosity.

And opinions.

Quite a few, really.

I like things with personality. Work that takes risks. Things that are a little strange, unexpectedly beautiful, intentionally ugly, culturally significant, excessive, or unable to fit in just one category.

I'm intrigued why it seems we collectively agree that something is 'tasteful'. Who makes that choice? Why does something as simple as a waterbottle or a lip oil become aspirational? Why does everyone all of a suddent want the same shade of yellow? Why things that were considered hideous 5 years ago turns up on someones moodboard with the word 'INSPO' as the name.

I believe creative work can be fun and professional. Being serious doesn't require beige or alabaster.

Good design can be smart, funny. Strange and strategic. Mildly obnoxious but beautiful. It can reference something stupid you saw online and still be communicating something worthy of your time.

Culture has never behaved like a boardroom presentation, so why would I write about it like one? I don't see the point in that.

That's more or less what Marginalia is for.

Is it a design blog? Not quite.

Is it cultural criticism? Also not quite.

It absolutely is not a newsletter telling you that you can "unlock your creative potential".

Simply put, it is just a collection of things i picked up, and cannot leave alone.

I might dissect something. I might defend something that it seems the rest of the world hates. Sometimes I might end up writing a 1,500 word dissertation because a company changed logos or branding and I have Feelings™.

Sometimes, I'll disappear for three weeks. Why? Because as I previously stated:

I'll get to this when I get to it.

I would rather write about something because my mind is flooded with it instead of just writing something for the sake of writing content.

All I want is culture, pop culture, the internet, design, the zeitgeist, and whatever weird string that connects them that I happen to be pulling on that day.

It's not the whole picture, its what I can see from the margins.

That's the whole point.