Back in February I said I’d do one of these maybe every month or so. Best laid plans and all that. Ah well - I’ll roll it up into an end of year reflection kind of thing.
#Quick site retro
I’ve hit 12 posts this year which I’m happy with. Once a month is something to build on. And I’m enjoying writing, which was the main driver to starting it, so that’s success enough.
My highlights were…
I also made a Uses page which I’ll continue to add more to as I go. Plus I made my analytics public at analytics.simseneca.design.
#Shuffling along the path
Finally moving on from my old place was a daunting but much needed change. I learned a ridiculous amount and am not only a better designer, but I leave with the broader experience of contributing to Product, Engineering and Marketing, establishing and nurturing a positive company culture, and helping define, organise and grow a start-up. I made some friends for life.
Re-entering the world of freelance, I’ve been lucky to find projects I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve met lovely people, worked on a variety of products and feel open to newness again; confident that the Pathless Path will reveal itself as I go.
Huge thanks to the teams at FX, Channel 4, Let’sCo and Hawkfield Partners who have all contributed to this feeling that I’m ending the year in a positive, hopeful place, excited for 2026.
#PCB’s, switches and keycaps
In hindsight, getting into mechanical keyboards was inevitable. I went quite deep, quite quickly, losing myself in Reddit threads and Discord servers. It’s fun to get into such a niche community and I’ve enjoyed worrying about the lube on my Cherry MX switches.
Currently rocking the Womier SK75 and the Neo Ergo and just having a great time fiddling around.
#Where in the world
Being back in freelance world, I miss the office. I love the flexibility of working from home and am grateful not to be trapped somewhere 9-5, but I miss working with people in real life. I value the community and it’s just not the same via webcam.
Fortunately, I have other friends also working remotely and one of the highlights of the year was moving into a shared work space with pal and engineer extraordinaire Jon Evans.
It’s an unusual space; the old Marks & Spencer’s in the centre of Bristol converted under a “meanwhile” license into a space for artists, charities and local businesses to set up shop. There are slicker office options, with flat whites and trendy sofas, but I feel at home surrounded by a mix of creative people in the ramshackle charm of the not-for-profit Sparks space. If we want to regenerate our high streets and town centres bring in the independents!
How long we’ll have the building for is uncertain, but whilst we do the natural light, cycle commute and conversations over a boiling kettle have helped reinstate a much missed sense of physical workplace; a counterweight to the digital world I’m in most of my day.
#The wrong right trousers
Two trouser related points.
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My son (hovering between 18 months and 2 years), has gotten in to Wallace and Gromit. We’re not showing him much TV but when we inevitably capitulate we’re keen to set him up with good taste as early as possible. It’s been lovely reconnecting with these beloved films and man they are still CHARMING AS HECK. Those juicy fingerprints. Proud to share a home with Aardman.
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I bought two pairs of reasonably bold trousers recently that I would never have worn a year ago. They’re still wearing me a little but who says men can’t wear colours or patterns. Even the fact I’m up for a change is a nice reflection that the confidence levels are up and to the right.
#The wrong incentives
Well, AI continues to roll on rolling out, unchecked, unregulated, un-thought through, adding bloat to our digital products, undermining core tenets of what it is to be human and ‘10x-ing’ the threats to democracy, mental health, privacy and the environment that we’re already failing on.
Merry Christmas!
I use it for bits and pieces of course, but mostly I don’t feel good about it. It feels hollow. Like empty calories.
I’m feeling more emboldened to resist the tech monopoly’s narrative that it’s inevitable and reject the notion that to be critical is to be anti-progress or anti-technology. Until the incentives switch from shareholder profit to social harmony, I’ll continue to be pretty damn moody about it all.
Having said that - it does present an opportunity to double down on the things that are most important to us. Nothing like a threat to focus the mind.
The Centre for Humane Technology continue to do excellent work defining, educating and pushing for humanity first solutions. I can’t recommend their podcast Your Undivided Attention enough and if you just have 1 hour to give to the subject then watch this presentation.
#Christmas tree 3D scan
In more cheery news, I thought you might like to see our Christmas tree. You can rotate it and zoom in and stuff. That’s Santa Claude at the top.
#Vibes
🎧 Like The End by James Blake - My most listened to track of the year according to Deezer. Probably says something about this feeling I have in the pit of my stomach. The artwork makes me feel things.
🎧 Half Your Love by Bahamas - A last minute gig with the inimitable Sam Brookes to see Bahamas proved to be one of the musical highlights of the year. This one, written for his wife who when asked her thoughts said “it’s ok 🤷♀️”, particularly stuck with me.
🎧 Rubber Dukkie by Ernie off of Seasame Street (aka Jim Henson (aka legend)) - A bathtime favourite in our household, bringing bubbly joy to toddlers and parents alike.
🎞️ Jay Kelly by Noah Baumbach - Noah Baumbach is one of my favourite writers/directors and this didn’t disappoint. More surreal and theatrical than previous films but still with all the life-affirming, life-questioning melancholic mumblecore I so enjoy about his work.
🎞️ The Ballad of Wallis Island by James Griffiths - This film will make you feel better. It will bring a smile to your face and make you all warm inside, all whilst keeping on the right side of sentimental. Can’t recommend enough.
🎞️ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Michel Gondry - We were lucky enough to go to an in-person Q&A and screening with Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman. They were exactly as I’d hoped they’d be; Gondry all French, philosophical dreaminess, and Kaufman anxious, quick-witted and downbeat. I can assure you the film is as beautiful and tragic as ever. One poor woman in the audience asked if they thought the characters ended up together and everyone rightly booed.
🎞️ Want a list of all the films we watched this year? Here y’are.
📺 Pluribus, Season 1 - Vince Gilligan’s gone and made the best show of the year again. Smart, nuanced, patient, stylish. As the best Sci-Fi’s do, it’s taken a real world conversation (AI in my eyes), shifted it just enough out of reality and blown it up to a size easier to examine. Questions, questions, existential questions.
📺 The Bear, Season 4 - I know some of you bailed after the slightly directionless season 3 but season 4 was back to being warm, funny and satisfying. I could spend forever with these characters and the cinematography, editing and soundtrack is just so damn good. I’ll really miss this show.
🎭 Mog’s Christmas by The Wardrobe Ensemble - I might be biased, given that this was directed by my partner, but I’m lucky that I don’t have to fake my love of her work. Her and The Wardrobe Ensemble make genuinely joyful theatre; an antidote to modern life. Mog’s Christmas made me cry festive tears. I’ve not felt this non-humbug in decades.
📖 How to Fall in Love with the Future by Rob Hopkins - I sense that we’re getting a bit bored of all the doom and hopelessness. I know I am. So it’s refreshing and important to read a hopeful, practical book on the power of imagining better futures. Left me feeling inspired.
📖 The Lion and the Unicorn by George Orwell - Here in the UK we had an onslaught of intimidating, laughably basic, racism fuelled nationalistic bullshit this summer as an oppressive amount of Union Jacks were hung around the country. In search of a positive, less-brutish definition of what it is to be British I was recommended this 1941 essay from Orwell which is still incisive and restorative.
“The English will never develop into a nation of philosophers. They will always prefer instinct to logic and character to intelligence. But they must get rid of their downright contempt for ‘cleverness’. They cannot afford it any longer. They must grow less tolerant of ugliness, and mentally more adventurous. And they must stop despising foreigners. They are Europeans and ought to be aware of it.”
#Choose human
This Christmas I’ll be continuing to choose and celebrate the gift of being human. With all its complicated scrappiness and uncomfortable awkwardness and warm tenderness.
Let’s not get sidetracked by the shiny, empty, privately-owned promises of techno-optimism. It’s the same gift rewrapped from last year, last decade, last century.
Be proactively pro-human.
Maybe even pro Neo-Luddism.
Accept your uncertainty and trust the unknowable. Be a bit bored sometimes. Dare to be inefficient. Unplug, reset, don’t plug back in until you have to. And when you do, maybe unplug a bit earlier and go to the park.
Enjoy just being human, you beautiful human.
See you in 2026 for another spin.