Journal

Tuesday, July 7

Meetings Processed

2:25 PM | 1:1 | Mickey Mellen | 2026-07-02-mickey-mellen | 2026-07-02 - Mickey Mellen - 1:1
8:55 AM | 1:1 | Andy Milligan | 2026-07-06-andy-milligan | 2026-07-06 - Andy Milligan - 1:1
10:25 AM | Client | Lumberock (CMILC) | 2026-07-06-cmilc | 2026-07-06 - CMILC - Client | ✉️ follow-up owed → Erin Dyer
12:05 PM | Client | Sherman & Phalen Law | 2026-07-06-sherman-phalen-law | 2026-07-06 - Sherman & Phalen Law - Client | ✉️ follow-up owed → David Sherman
2:20 PM | Client | Lumberock (StudioHawk) | 2026-07-06-lumberock-charlie-keown | 2026-07-06 - Charlie Keown (Lumberock) - Client | ✉️ follow-up owed → Charlie Keown
4:10 PM | 1:1 | Judd Lyon | 2026-07-07-judd-lyon | 2026-07-07 - Judd Lyon - 1:1

Entrepreneurial Spark

"We are going to see a lot more young exceptional talent in the upcoming years, but when everyone becomes “exceptional” no one becomes exceptional, the only thing left is emotional depth. Trust is built through emotional depth."

The quote above could easily be moved across decades:

When Google got its start
When the iPhone was released into the world
When social media promised connection with distant friends
When AI was released out into the wild to solve all of our problems

I wrote a bit about "texture" (specifically in physical product design and digital). A lot of that "texture" comes down to depth. It's easy to create something wide and shallow now. The differentiator now is going to be personality.

How is that showcased? Through connection. Through community. Through working alongside each other. Getting in the trenches with each other.

How does that apply digitally? I think (and hope) we are going to make the web weird again. Everything got flat over the last decade or so. The iPhone notepad used to look like a notepad. Flash websites immersed you into whatever world the company wanted you to be in. All of that got traded out for some simple "slide in" effects when content scrolled up on the screen.

Heck, that's why my website is a mini video game. Punch the boxes. Collect the coins. There isn't a reason [yet] for it, but there will be.

I attached some funky website designs I've done recently. None have made it to production yet, but I'm seeing more and more people interested in something that is uniquely theirs.

Entrepreneurial Spark (2)

Need to grab the panel from Hawkeye to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/rc3wkz/hawkeye22mattfractionshawkeyehasthe_most/

I wish I had the quote, but I was reading a guide that Matthew Dicks put out about storytelling a long time ago. One of the things he talked about was not over-indexing on the details. It went something like this (I'm absolutely gonna botch it, but here is to trying):

As you're telling a story, it takes the reader a lot of brain power to try to picture your world as you remember it:

"I was outside on a smeltering 95 degrees day. The humidity was off the charts because it recently had downpoured for hours. Needless to say I was sweating through my t-shirt. I was in downtown Duluth - a small, 4-square-block city - standing on the green. The green was tiered with brick walls and there were kids playing soccer."

That's too much. You're making the reader remember every detail about your story, but the details don't move the story forward.

This is better:

"You know those days where you walk outside and immediately your shirt is drenched with sweat? Needless to say, my morning didn't start out comfortably."

When your writing is like the latter, you're collaborating with the reader. Yes, all the small details of your story may not come through, but you're allowing the reader to put themselves in your shoes within the confines of their own experience. While they may not paint the SAME picture as you want them to experience, It feels more real to them. The experience ends up being a collaboration between the writer and the reader, and each reader's experience is their own.

How do you do that digitally?

I think in our world of optimizing the user experience, we leave absolutely zero gaps. Every menu is in the same place. We optimize for the Z-pattern our eyes are used to. We use the standard "three lines" to denote the menu on a mobile device.

Whenever a website breaks any of these rules, it stands out. It makes you think. Back in the day, websites made with Flash immersed you into their world and you had to figure out how this company built their own little world on the web.

So, when do you break the pattern and leave a gap?

You have to know your customer well. I'm a huge proponent of personality-led marketing. How does your personality mesh with your potential customers?

Right now, for me, that's in my site's entire architecture:

The main menu is called Inventory and requires a click to get into

There are clickable bricks that you can explode that play silly animations

There are cheat codes that you can type in that also play animations

None of these are common practices -- and a lot waste clicks. However, I know that my audience is looking for a few things: Price, examples, process, and my team.

ALL four of those are linked in the main hero section as a "choose your own adventure" and are accessible within a few seconds. The rest? It allows the visitor to immerse themselves in "fun".

I trade clicks for smiles. We'll see how it works.

Side note: the Matt Fraction Hawkeye series did an amazing job with this as well.

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