PROGRESS REPORT

ISSUE #146

I’m Dan, a maker and image man. I’m a very curious person, and I have a lot of hobbies and interests. Trust me, it would be overwhelming for me to list them out. I love my wife, my cat, my friendships, and I’m a Times New Roman enthusiast.

Art I’ve enjoyed recently.

Harmony Index. A fantastic artist based out of LA. Their sound takes a lot of cues from 80s dream pop, like the Cocteau Twins, but also seems to elegantly blend influences from UK garage and ambient DnB. This description isn’t doing it justice, but if you’re into this vibe, I would highly recommend checking Harmony Index out.

Running by Lindsey A. Freeman. I really enjoyed this little book about such a familiar activity for a lot of people. Rather than being about training or sports, it’s a beautifully written semiotic study of running. I’ll let the book blurb from Duke University Press speak for itself: “In Running, former NCAA Division I track athlete Lindsey A. Freeman presents the feminist and queer handbook of running that she always wanted but could never find. For Freeman, running is full of joy, desire, and indulgence in the pleasure and weirdness of having a body…”

Mark Steinmetz. Every now and then I love flipping through my Greater Atlanta Steinmetz book to get inspired and energized. Steinmetz’s photography speaks to me in how deeply candid, intimate, yet so wonderfully composed it is. His photography reminds me the world has potential to still be beautiful if we just looked at it a bit differently.

News that has given me hope lately.

Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) made the score for Marty Supreme.

Lopatin is a Brooklyn-based producer and composer who also recently came out with a fantastic record named Tranquilizer as OPN. So much of his work is about recontextualizing found samples and being creative within constraints. In an age where AI can generate virtually anything for people it’s interesting to see artists still making novel things with older tools and forms.

Best source of IRL inspiration.

Rare art and design books.

While it’s super convenient to pull inspiration and references online, I personally think the best inspiration for design is always in books. If you think about it, everyone in the creative community is on are.na at this point looking at the same stuff every day. Get inspired by books—the designs even smell good most of the time!

Recently, I was in Tokyo and a friend recommended Totodo. It’s a crazy store dedicated to rare art and design books. I left with Helmut Schmid’s Typography Today. Other bookstores I frequent are Arcana Books here in LA, and if I’m browsing online, I am a devoted customer of Draw Down Books.

A tool or framework worth implementing.

The 80/20 rule.

I'm currently training for the LA Marathon, and there’s a general principle of training where you want to keep 80% of your weekly runs easy to build consistency and frequency and 20% difficult for fitness gains.

I’ve been curious if something like this can apply to work to avoid burnout, keep the inspiration going, and create intentional moments where high effort matters most. In practice, this could look like planning days to pause on the actual craft and go back to ‘easier’ tasks like pulling swipe, allowing you to return to the craft with fresh energy.

Advice that’s changed the way I think or work.

“Would your closest people in life care or judge you for this?”

This pertains mainly to really big decisions, when I can’t shake the anxiety. This simple thought experiment usually leads me to feel like what I’m really worried about probably doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Now, if the answer to the question is yes, I’m probably doing something really wrong. Ha!

A skill or practice I’m currently learning and why.

Cooking vegan.

I wanted to take a stab at learning how to cook more vegan dishes because I’m fascinated with the creativity around a lot of the recipes. It’s amazing to see the ingenious ways folks develop texture and flavor with all vegan ingredients.

It’s also incredibly fun to learn how to cook in a different way. The other night I enjoyed a vegan bolognese using tofu.

About Progress Report

Progress Report is a bi-weekly newsletter of business considerations, cultural conversations, and fun recommendations from around the world and web.