JUNE 30, 2026  |  View online  |  Share  |  From your pals at Pathwright  | Sign in

Design, Tech & Arts for Curious Minds

“No-maintenance” home in Costa Rica

Here at HQ in South Carolina we’re in the middle of some hot, humid days. Ideal for ducking into theaters for a summer movie or jumping in the neighborhood pool. I’ve got a few choice links for you to float along on.

This time we’re colliding $2,200 glasses, 1,327 browsable films, 288 clock faces, 8 design principles and 3 design books that should be on your bookshelf. More on that last one next.

Please skip around, read what you want to. Find something interesting in your own internet travels? Send me a link

—JH

Book Recommendations

3 More Design Books That Should Be on Your Shelf

I’ve previously covered three books connected to design from my own bookshelf. Today, here’s three more.

These aren’t affiliate links. I don’t make any money off these. They’re honest-to-goodness recommendations, me to you.

50 Design Ideas You Really Need to Know

I found this comfortable-in-the-hand paperback in a local bookstore. Each chapter is a trim four pages long and covers a discreet topic.

The author does a wonderful job explaining historical origins and tying them to present-day. Take his chapter on Surrealism which name-checks Dadaism and Dalí but ends by noting that Postmodernism borrows from Surrealism too. Dalí’s Lobster Telephone perhaps lead directly to the Hamburger Phone.

Buy on Amazon

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps: Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking

Written by prop maker Annie Atkins, Fake Love Letters details the discipline of creating period-accurate fakery through the wiles of graphic design.

There is no shortcut, warns Atkins. Only a life of packratting and constant noticing develops the mental texture of correctness. (Show me a design field that doesn’t work this way.) Atkins shows off the fine detail in her delightful creations for several Wes Anderson films, Lyle Lyle Crocodile and many others.

Buy on Amazon

Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds

Now this is a handsome hardback. Bound in white with eye-catching gradients and spot varnish accents, it’s as capable as a reference volume and as pretty as a coffee table piece.

Upon opening it you’ll find chapter after chapter of wireframe maps underpinning video games of the last several years. Assassin’s Creed Unity kicks things off. Maps reveal how architecture and geography combine to provide perfect paths between areas designed to feel like you’re discovering them as you play. But, of course, it’s all by design.

Buy on Amazon

Dead Cat

10 curious links that would have killed the cat

⛳️ A round of putt putt every day. It’s a minigolf green you can attempt (and watch everyone else attempt) right in your browser. Highly suggest pulling this up over lunch.

putt.day ∙ Browser Game

📞 Commodore’s next innovation is… a flip phone. Number pad texting, no social media or browsers, audiophile-grade HD Audio. All in a package that looks like something Jimmy McGill would have sold you in Better Call Saul.

Commodore ∙ Product

🍿 Browse the Criterion Closet in 3D in your browser. Oliver and Patrick Evans built the mobile collection you see folks like Jodie Foster, Jon Hamm and Matthew Rhys picking from. A great way to get your shopping cart in order for Criterion’s 50% off sale.

The Criterion Closet ∙ Web Experiment

🕐 288 analogue clock faces tell the time as a digital clock. The sea of clocks undulates as you mouse over them too. As beautiful and unsettling as time itself.

Million Times ∙ Web Experiment

Snap unveils $2,200 AR glasses alongside new discounted stock price. These seem targeted at creators/influencers to me.

TechCrunch ∙ News

A train station filled with wood cubes

🧱 Artist Lina Lapelytė filled a train station with 400,000 4” wood cubes for anyone to build with. The installation is called “We Make Years Out of Hours” and also involves readings in the space four times per week. It’s up in Berlin until mid-January next year.

Colossal ∙ Featured Artwork

🎨 Watch Julian restore fine art for eight and a half minutes. Astonishing to watch clarity and brilliance return to this oil painting. And not a little nervous-making to observe.

Youtube ∙ Video

🏡 A “no maintenance” home in Costa Rica. Window walls, poured concrete structure, and nice brick patterns to break it all up.

Dwell ∙ Article

🤔 The words designers use when they know what they’re looking at. You may already know what “empty state”, “CTA” and “toast” mean, but this collection provides you with precise, usably-sized definitions just in case.

index.how ∙ Design Education Resource

📐 Apple’s design principles. “Craft: Your design is a reflection of how much you care. It shows your dedication to delivering the best possible experience for people. Take the time to do the work well.” Predictably, these are great.

Apple ∙ Developer Documentation

New at HQ

in Greenville, SC

Last week on Wednesday Christian led a PathCamp session on Learning Experience Design principles. It was a lively hour with great questions from you all who attended. Thanks for coming if you were able to!

*   *   *

Bye, until next time I’ll be thinking about stamps.

High five,

Justin Hall
Editor, Partner at Pathwright

Pathwright helps you create the simplest, most well-designed paths the world has ever seen.

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Articles and ideas linked to here are for you to explore and form your own ideas about. They don’t necessarily reflect Pathwright’s own exact thoughts, beliefs or culture, nor do they reflect specific guidance from Pathwright on a topic. We enjoy mixing it up with other people’s ideas and want to pass the interesting ones on to you.