aesthetic is a creative constraint

https://stephango.com/style

this was the original writing that i feel that was very insightful, and something i always wanted to verbalise but failure to get it out of my head. soon enough i formulated it to be creative constraints

here are some of my own constraints i want to abide by in various contexts.

general folder management at a very top level.

+sources - these are references of other’s work atlas dots atlas maps atlas works calendar compass calendar notes calendar logs effort notes

01 personal - these are things related to my personal life and brand 02 agency - these are things related to my side projects, companies i’m building, basically things bigger than my entity 03 freelance - these are things from one off projects, or freelance stuff, and even 9-5 related basically when i’m working for others. 04 assets - these are general assets that can be useful 05 archive - these are things i no longer intend to use

x - these are files and assets

in each folder, i try to have minimal sub folders - admin, templates/sops,

tags and naming systems

i use yyyy-mm-dd everywhere

in general use pluralise tags, for example people not person so that i don’t have to think of which to use

brand/company_title_version number

colours

this is my personal brand colours. essentially what i like to keep as much as possible

i like the colour blue, but in general, monochromatic with minimal logos or loud designs.

not to use black and white, but off colors like 333333 and faf4e5

pastel in nature

writing & typography

i like having one san serif font, serif font, and one handwritten font

fonts - helvetical neue ltd std bold, apple garamond, lazydog

i like typing in lowercase, firstly its easier, and forces me to write in a structure and way that still seems readable.

i use markdown and wysiwyg interchangeably

i use plain text and markdown files for all my writing

i write concise essays, less than 500 words

life

i have a hair cut every 1-2 months i shave every 3 days at a maximum

reviews

i ask myself 40 questions every year i do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly reviews. i do 16 personality test, ikigai every 3-6 months just to keep myself in check

filming

i shoot things on my phone first, this gives me creative constraint.

here’s a collection of interesting personal style choices i’ve enjoyed.

  • Scott Yu-Jan paints all his tools white.
  • 2ynthetic uses a limited palette for outfits and office decor.
  • Johnny Decimal is a system to organize digital data.
  • Casey Neistat labels everything in his studio with paint markers.
  • Ryan Hoover never changes his profile picture.
  • Wes Anderson uses the typeface Futura in many of his films.
  • Steve Jobs wore the same Issey Miyake black turtleneck and New Balance 991 shoes every day.
  • George R.R. Martin writes his novels on the 40 year old DOS operating system
  • Beethoven always counted exactly 60 coffee beans to make coffee, especially for visitors.
  • Jesper Kouthoofd of Teenage Engineering only uses lowercase because uppercase communicates too much authority
  • Osvaldo Cavandoli created the cartoon La Linea using an animated white line, colored backgrounds, and unintelligible vocalizations

visualise all my thoughts here.