you can just build things...

Doors for Tokyo Design Forum 2027 are open to everyone 🗼 Back in the earlier days, the design community was super tight-knit. As the industry grew, we lost a lot of that. @forum_tokyo is my contribution to help bring it back: one room in Tokyo where anyone who cares about this craft can show up, meet each other and leave with friends. The first 72 hours went to the people who came to year one. That was a thank you for taking a chance on something brand new. If you've been waiting, thank you for your patience. You're in. Can't wait to hang in Tokyo! See you in Shibuya, Feb 17-19 🙏 tokyodesignforum.com

the pen tool hasn't really changed since 1987. we're changing that at @OpacityHQ. @brdrck is literally a wizard for building this. 🧙‍♂️

life has been wildd. in march, @OpacityHQ acquired my design studio. then i joined the startup as a founding designer. spoke at @valiocon. sold out @forum_tokyo design conference last year (way more than i expected) with @Cursor, @NotionHQ, @framer, @contra being sponsors. the 2nd one is being planned with the dates set on 17th of February. it's my 7th year living in Japan with no plans to move back to US. designed an app that helps people navigate Heathrow airport. traveled to Thailand, Vietnam, San Diego, SF, LA, Miami, just this year. crazy. design and the design community has changed my life, but i don't participate in it every day. so now i want to give back. you'll be seeing more of me here, sharing my story, wins, losses, lessons and my thoughts on the future. see you around! ✌️

"when is @forum_tokyo?" time to answer... still waiting on the venue to confirm dates. 🫣 but what i'm doing now: - planning the program better, last year i asked a lot of people to speak and a ton of them said yes, but i couldn't fit all of them on stage. so i ended up scrambling last second, this year i'm planning it intentionally. - the talk blocks will be shorter, no more than 70 minutes sitting - slightly bigger cap, last year i planned 50, but ended with 117. this year it's 150 max. - i want more japanese attendees this year, so i have an idea to build a native TDF app with real-time conversation translation. but this is TBD (will do another post about the app, if i end up doing it) honestly it's way easier this time around. it's me and 5 agents running 5 different workflows. one's testing all the engineering and architecture we'll need to set up, one's pitching me design concepts. without AI it would be hard to pull this off alone, at this scale. but the dates will be announced shortly, once the venue confirms. till then, let's appreciate a few shots from last year:

i film from my desk often. i have multiple cameras and lights and stuff—the annoying thing is, they all had different apps to control them. so, I’m building a little thing to tie them all together into a nice little package. more soon. 👀 (also, just wanna say: what a time to be a designer. you can just build stuff.)