It’s that time of year, as we all begin to come back online after a welcome break, we inevitably begin to look back on what we have achieved. Our feeds fill up with victory laps and highlight reels. You won’t find that here.

Trends are all pointing towards short form content. YouTube is now considered “long form”. If this is true - long form writing like this will become more and more the exception. As a designer, I have always been a salmon and will continue to swim against the stream. The edges are where discovery happens - and discovery is at the heart of what I do.

This Substack will continue to be a haven for ideas unpacked. No clickbait straplines with half baked ideas. Thank you for joining me on this year’s journey of exploration! I can’t wait to see what we uncover next.

And while Spotify has “Wrapped”, Substack doesn’t - so this month, I’m making my own.

Welcome to 2025 Wrapped.

2025 by the Numbers

📅 12 updates published this year

💡 4 Product Concepts shared

🚀 4 Product’s Launched

✍️17484 words written

🔥 Biggest Themes: Failure, focus, craft, rituals, conscious consumerism

🔗 Most shared: Update 028: A New Hope

⏳ Longest to write: Update 029: Designing for Rituals

🏆 Most Shared Find: Why Everyone is Quitting Social Media

📈 201% more subscribers

Thank you for reading, sharing, and sticking around. It genuinely matters.

My top tools for 2025

If you have been reading my updates for a while, you know I’m always testing new tools (analogue and digital). Growth, for me, comes from curiosity. Here are my top tools for 2025:

🎵 Alex Productions - Best Royalty Free Music. Exceptional quality, generously shared..

📐Vizcom: This was the year ai evolved from fringe tools for designers to everyday, credible tools.

🎙️ Notebooklm: Turning dense resources into instant podcasts. I now use it monthly on my own updates—and it keeps improving.

💡 Godox SL100D + lantern diffuser: Good lighting defines how well your work is understood. This was the single most important photography upgrade in my small studio—soft, forgiving, consistent.

🛠️ Bambulab P1S: My single best upgrade over this last year and this guy has already delivered 2116 hours in just under a year and half.

2030 Calculator: Not a silver bullet, but an essential starting point for understanding CO₂ impact when developing new products. Every designer should have this in their arsenal.

Failure is Part of the Journey

I’ll be honest. This year has been tough.

From the outside, it may seem like the wheels have been spinning with some exciting products in the works but the reality is that I have experienced more failure than success this year.

Failure is part of the job. Social media encourages us to edit it out, to present only the wins. I’ve tried to resist that here, sharing the missteps alongside the progress. The biggest lesson moving into this year has been simple, but hard: less, but better.

I started this newsletter to find balance; between family life, a full-time role as an educator, and this work. Last year that balance tipped. I spread myself too thinly, and I wasn’t happy with the results. This reflection matters as much as any product launch.

That said, there was one clear success this year - and it matters more to me than any product metric.

This community.

Over the course of 2025, this newsletter more than doubled in size. Even more surprising: the open rate is sitting at 59%. In a world where we’re all drowning in emails, the fact that you keep opening, reading, and engaging (amidst all that noise) means a great deal to me. Thank you.

For context, an open rate of 18–25% is typically considered good. This feels like a genuine signal that these slower, more thoughtful updates are resonating and that makes all the difference.

Don’t forget, help me to spread the reach and get more products off the ground by getting your friends and family to sign up below :)

 

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My Products, My philosophy

I find myself more driven than ever to put thoughtful, meaningful products out into the world that don’t compromise on quality. The type of products people want to own and help in some way.

I’ve spent the last few years reflecting quite heavily on what I want to focus my attention on for the next 5 years. Time is tight, family time is important but I am driven more than ever to add thoughtful friction into people’s lives.

Too often we find ourselves in autopilot, trying to complete the never ending to do list we really don’t stand a chance of ever getting to the bottom of.

I want to design products that intentionally take us out of auto-pilot. That incense holder that sits next to you throughout the day, reminding you to take a break. The coffee cup that feels just right in the hand and encourages you to savour every sip.

Objects designed to help you notice the moments you’re in. Start your 2026 right and support a small independent designer :)

Shop Now

As a thank you, you can use this discount code at checkout (available site wide): SubstackCrew (10% off).

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Last months most clicked link: Memo: the playful robot.

My top 5 pieces of content I have found helpful/inspiring:

1.

An AI powered sticker printer for kids. Hearing this founders story really resonated with me and this feels like one of the first good use cases of AI to empower and encourage kids imagination. Very cool.

2. 

I Skied Down Mount Everest. A world’s first and the most suspenseful 30 minutes you will experience this week.

3. 

Search Engine (annual review). Listening to a long format podcast discuss the state of media today was eye opening. The internet is not going to tune algorithms towards thoughtfulness - so we need to do something differently.

4. 

The Crit - Ab Rogers. Great episode focussing on the importance of human centred design in healthcare settings. The importance of community and co-design in creating meaningful spaces.

5.

Pixar Luxo Jr Lego. I have been loving building lego with my son over the last few years and this Christmas, I got my first lego set in over 20 years. keep your eyes out for this guy being converted into a working lamp ;)

A Bit of Fun

The nights are getting dark and it’s been a long year - I needed a little fun.

Sometimes we just need a little escape - a chance to stretch your muscles without having to set the world on fire. It gets seriously dark over the winter months up here in Aberdeen. Whilst we have a few smaller lights around the home, we still overly rely on “the big light” in our main living room. We needed something a little warmer and calmer. I had a bambu LED panel kicking about, some leftover oak from a previous project and a seed of an idea.

4 prototypes and less than 48 hours later, we have a working prototype.

A simple machined oak base and 3D printed shade and we now have a cosy lamp to keep the vibes just right over the colder months. Sometimes ideas come to you fully formed and just need teased out.

The speed gets me every time. Turning an idea into a physical object in under two days (using only evenings) still feels a little magical. It’s a reminder of what’s possible when momentum matters more than perfection.

I’m a huge advocate for passion projects. Going from nothing to something always unlocks new ways of working, fresh knowledge, and often entirely new tools. Even when the outcome is small, the learning never is.

This is how I grow.

Ripple Lamp - a warm accent for the home. Japanese lantern inspired form with a soft glow and warm oak for a premium feel. Calm by design.

Looking Ahead to 2026

One big change: less time on video. Same Impact.

I still believe video can be a powerful way to tell stories about craft. But after nearly burning myself out over the last three years, the truth is I don’t have the time to do it the way I want to.

2026 will be a year of testing: faster workflows, lighter production, more emphasis on storytelling than polish.

This is the first attempt - a quick, imperfect look at the Ripple Lamp.

And that’s okay.

Less, but better.