SUBGRID

ISSUE 006

As the last issue of 2025 being sent out on Christmas Eve, I want to keep it brief.

For as long as I remember, I've identified as a curator. A curator of ideas and products, small and big. Apart from software interface design, the medium of writing is how I express myself best. I've long held on to the dream of curating and writing via a regular publication. Even though, I've had a blog for 20 years, I've never been able to stick to a discipline of regular writing through it. It was finally 6 issues ago that I decided to start SUBGRID, as a space for thoughtful curation, weaved in with bits of writing, committing to weekly issues.

Whether it was reflecting on AI-generated slop in Issue 001, covering a typeface inspired by a city in Issue 002, thinking about advertising in Issue 003, a design futurist's principles to look at the world with optimism in Issue 004, or making sense of everything going on all at once in Issue 005, I've kind of ad-hoc just tried to connect bits of ideas each week into a whole. My key intent with everything I do around work is to emerge from the other end with a thing that someone somewhere in the world finds useful. So, I hope you've found this useful in some way. Thank you so much for sending in very kind notes from different parts of the world.

As the holiday season is upon us, just remember that while there is merriment in the air in a commercial, religious or musical realms, the world is always a dichotomy of success and struggle, spread across time and space. While one succeeds, another could be struggling. It's not a zero-sum game, but it's also not equally just. It's best we always operate with that reality in mind. Ideally, enthusiasm for one's own path is balanced with kindness for others. If we can remember that, our net of safety can be bigger as a collective species.

–Siddharth

WORDS & VIEWS

From around the web.

​On India's disappearing street lettering​

"For designers outside India, India Street Lettering offers a case study in how local visual traditions resist and adapt global design norms. For those working with non-Latin scripts, it shows how letterforms evolve when freed from industrial constraints." – writes Creative Boom about a new book by type designer Pooja Saxena that catalogs lettering in handcrafted signage all over the streets of India. I love these design catalog type books and it's rare to find one about typography in India.

​Pinterest Predicts 2026 Trends​

I generally shy away from including list-bait articles ("10 trends for ...") in this newsletter, but it's the end of the year, so oh well. Pinterest, the inspiration discovery network that I don't visit much due to algorithms and ad revenue now calling all the shots over their original mission, published its annual predictions for trends that are about to have a moment. It's a nicely designed list interface with vibrant typography. The one trend that I found fascinating was Pen Pals. (See this week's Product Discoveries.)

​Jeep's AI-generated commercial​

Amusing new TV commercial from Jeep. Mostly AI-generated. This was the handiwork of Chicago-based 1986 Studios which has done some other cool work like a Severance-inspired State Farm commercial.

​Riffing on early ideas with prototypes​

The lines between a designer and product manager and frontend engineer are blurring. Prompt-to-code tools like Figma Make let you go directly to a working prototype for any sort of software, making ideas clearer when evaluating which design direction to go in. I've written "product requirement documents" (PRDs) since high school, but they always get too verbose and too outdated quickly. This is why in recent years, I've preferred Shaping docs, inspired by Shape Up methodology of designing products. Lately though, I find myself going straight from iPad sketch to Figma Make to test out concepts. I think for forward-looking product teams, the era of PRDs has come to an end. Prototypes should be the shared artifacts to refine ideas when building digital products, not PRDs.

PRODUCT DISCOVERIES

Things I observe, try or love in the wild from makers who seem to put care & thought in the design. Just personal recommendations and curiosities (no affiliate fees earned).

​Letters from Afar: Ever miss the charm of receiving real letters? Letters from Afar is a unique concept that delivers an on-going story of an explorer trotting the globe through periodic postal mail. With 15,000+ monthly recipients, you will be in good company of people rediscovering old-fashioned charms. A portion of their sales are donated to constructing schools in regions that need them the most.

​Star Wars Sleep Soundtrack: Ambient sleep music, but Star Wars-inspired. Or work music. I'm a big Star Wars fan but also a frequent peruser of ambient dreamy soundscapes / pensive film soundtracks (every year, soundtracks from The Martian by Harry Gregson-Williams & The Theory of Everything by Jóhann Jóhannsson are among my top albums), so this playlist is one I will explore in the coming year.

​Anavrin: The miniature space is booming. A show about building dream homes in miniature form Best in Miniature has done well on Netflix (my wife seems to be an avid watcher). Anavrin, a palindrome of Nirvana, makes DIY miniature kits that aim to transport you to different places in the world, across space and time. Sounds fun. I've never assembled a miniature myself (except model car kits which I loved assembling as a kid and I'm sure I would still enjoy today), but it sounds fun and I'd love to try it.

​Flighty: Flighty is one of the most-loved apps on my iPhone. Since 2024, it's been indispensable for travel. I'm not a frequent traveller, so I only subscribe to it weekly ($4.99 for a week) when I travel, but it's super useful to keep track of my flights and can provide you accurate data that occasionally I find is even faster or more accurate than what the flight crew knows. An Apple Design Award winning app, Flighty doesn't try to do too much, but the few things it does, it does them beautifully. Tech analyst Ben Thompson of Stratechery recently did an interview with its CEO (paywall) which I enjoyed listening to. Apparently, in 2025, I did 61,252 km across 17 flights and spent 9 hours in delays (thanks Air Canada).

THIS WEEK'S BOOK

A book from my shelf or one I aspire to own.

DESIGNER OF NOTE

People whose design portfolios I admire.

​Mike Matas​

Mike Matas is an interface designer whose work I've looked up to over the years. Matas' work has been lots of novel interfaces from the last two decades – Apple's original Photo Booth app, the iPhone battery icon, the original iPhone camera design, the original Apple Maps on iPhone, the Nest thermostat and a few more. In design credits, Matas shares esteemed company of people like Steve Jobs, Bret Victor, Steve Lemay (Lemay recently announced as the new design head at Apple) and more. Now working with Jony Ive at LoveFrom, he's probably working on the AI hardware that's coming in the next few years from ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

ARTIFACT FROM THE PAST

A figment of design history.

~ That's it for this week's edition. Happy Holidays 🎄 ~

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