I love Marcin Wichary (design director at Figma) for his ability to find an interesting thread and keep pulling on it. A kindred spirit.
Marcin created a book about keyboards a couple of years ago which has pride of place on my shelf entitled 'Shift Happens'. It's a remarkable tome not just for its ambition but the quality of execution and sheer completeness. When I supported his Kickstarter, such was the level of global enthusiasm for his work that the most ambitious stretch goal was dwarfed by the response. It was also a masterclass in how to run a Kickstarter, you can see the newsletter archive here and a 'Making of' post talking about the process. No surprise that it became the most successful tech book in the history of the platform and ended up raising over US$750k.
But the point of this post is that Marcin has found a new wormhole that is surprisingly interesting. System settings.
As a designer, I’m meant to dislike settings. As a user, I love them. Every year I celebrate Settings Day: a day when I take a look at the options and toggles in all the apps I use. I do this out of curiosity – what was added since the last time I looked? – but also because I love this way of getting to know software: peeking under the hood, walking the back alleys, learning what has been tricky or important enough to be equipped with a checkbox.
Join Marcin on a journey through the first twenty years of Mac’s control panels on his site at Aresluna. He has also been discussing how he assembled the article on his Mastodon.
