Designing with prose
The power of a language comes from the fact that it is generative. A language is not a mere set of signs, or a set of labels… It is a system of rules, which allows you to create an infinite variety of unique combinations, directly suited to the specific circumstances in which they are used. A drawing cannot do this. A drawing is a picture of one particular thing. It cannot adapt itself.
These ideas from 50 years ago feel more relevant than ever. I’m finding myself spending less time lining up pixels, and more time thinking about the system of rules that produce those pixels. It’s easy to look at an output and say “that’s the design”, but the design isn’t the output: the design is the choices that led to that output.