https://randomembassy.com/categories/ Recent content in Categories on The Random Embassy Papers Hugo -- gohugo.io en-US https://randomembassy.com/034-/-the-simulation-of-engagement/ Fri, 11 Jul 2025 06:05:30 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/034-/-the-simulation-of-engagement/ There’s a fine line between staying aware of the events in the world and letting yourself be consumed by it. I’ve been thinking about this distinction lately: where awareness ends and algorithmic manipulation begins. It’s one thing to understand what’s happening in the world and to take an interest in the injustices that have occurred throughout history. We can better understand why the world is the way it is at the current moment, and then ideally take steps in our personal lives that might bring change about. https://randomembassy.com/033-/-birds-in-the-rafters-on-unplanned-beauty/ Sun, 11 May 2025 06:05:30 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/033-/-birds-in-the-rafters-on-unplanned-beauty/ Naples streets in March carry a different kind of chill than Amsterdam—less humid, a bit more easygoing, but still demanding jackets and scarves by evening. We join the growing crowd of tourists navigating these ancient streets, our conversation drawn to the monumental centuries-old doors that punctuate many facades. Three or four meters high, built to accommodate horse-drawn carriages passing into courtyards, yet each fitted with a smaller door carved into its face—human-scaled portals that force you to duck slightly as you cross the threshold. https://randomembassy.com/032-/-designing-your-practice/ Sun, 23 Mar 2025 11:05:30 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/032-/-designing-your-practice/ When I started my career as a designer, I believed there was a clear choice to make: pursue artistic integrity or chase commercial success. Twenty years and several cities later, I’ve learned this is a false dichotomy. Building a sustainable creative practice isn’t about choosing between these paths—it’s about creating systems that support both. The Democratization of Learning Life-long learning has transformed dramatically since I started in design. Back then, inspiration and technical knowledge were gatekept by institutions and instructors—you were limited by their tastes, skills, and perspectives. https://randomembassy.com/031-/-cities-change-when-we-do-notes-on-connection/ Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:30 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/031-/-cities-change-when-we-do-notes-on-connection/ Three scenes in Paris: The Ville de Paris administrative building, a classic example of mid-century modernist architecture ,Le Quincy's illuminated storefront with its charming rooster and checkered curtains and an authoritative Defense d'Afficher etched in limestone. There's something about how these places persist that speaks to how the city reveals its character over time, not all at once. Each detail adds another layer to understand, from ordinances emblazoned on stone to the glow of corner restaurants that anchor their neighborhoods. https://randomembassy.com/030-/-the-hidden-digital-divine/ Sun, 19 Jan 2025 11:05:30 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/030-/-the-hidden-digital-divine/ Nam June Paik – TV Buddha, 1974/2002, Statue of Buddha, TV monitor, closed-circuit camera, color, silent, dimensions variable, collection of the Nam June Paik Art Center Late one night many years ago, through a haze of smoke and meandering conversation in an apartment on Pine Street, something emerged in my mind. A whisper about the connection between the invisible forces that have shaped human civilization. This insight wasn’t clear then and still isn’t fully clear now. https://randomembassy.com/029-/-making-mouse-museum-a-study-in-artistic-reference-and-design/ Sat, 28 Dec 2024 11:09:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/029-/-making-mouse-museum-a-study-in-artistic-reference-and-design/ The close of 2024 feels like the right moment to look at a project that embraced what complex cultural work actually requires. The Mouse Museum book, created with William Pym and Alex Da Corte, took two years - spanning three languages and multiple institutions, with the 1979 Ludwig/Rijksmuseum publication as our north star. Not a reproduction, but a conceptual bridge that simply required time, precision, and attention. The craft mattered. https://randomembassy.com/028-/-your-brand-wont-survive-2025-unless-it-has-gravity/ Wed, 27 Nov 2024 11:04:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/028-/-your-brand-wont-survive-2025-unless-it-has-gravity/ Understanding Brand Gravity Through Palace Skateboards Brand gravity can be understood as a complex force that determines how companies attract and maintain influence in their market space. Looking at Palace Skateboards provides a perfect case study of how a relatively small brand can exert significant gravitational pull through focused intensity rather than sheer market size. Palace’s gravitational force stems from its ability to create its own universe of rules and expectations. https://randomembassy.com/027-/-navigating-ai-creativity-and-cultural-knowledge/ Tue, 15 Oct 2024 08:54:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/027-/-navigating-ai-creativity-and-cultural-knowledge/ “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”— Marshall McLuhan In the late 1990s, when I was in university, the iMac had just made its way into design schools. These blobby blue machines, with their meager 512MB of RAM, were met with trepidation by many of my professors. Most of them could only use the computers in a very basic capacity, if at all. But these machines weren’t just new tools; they were harbingers of a digital revolution in design. https://randomembassy.com/026-/-lost-in-translation-not-anymore./ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 08:54:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/026-/-lost-in-translation-not-anymore./ Good to see you again. So—it’s almost the end of 2024. Not yet, but we’re heading swiftly into the fall season in Amsterdam. I’m struck by how fast time passes, and I find myself thinking about one of my first trips to Europe with my friend Roman, nearly 19 years ago. It was one of the trips that set the stage for travel becoming a transformative part of my life. https://randomembassy.com/025-/-return-from-silence/ Mon, 02 Sep 2024 09:54:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/025-/-return-from-silence/ True friendships don’t have an expiration date. They can withstand radio silence, life changes, and even a global pandemic. That’s the kind of resilient bond that I hope I’m rekindling with this newsletter. I’ve slowly been emerging from a four-year social media hiatus. The last time you probably heard from me was during COVID when I was writing the Random Embassy Papers (also known as this email newsletter). I’m picking those virtual papers up again, but with a different approach. https://randomembassy.com/024-/-conversations-with-a-viennese-cabbie/ Fri, 17 Dec 2021 08:54:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/024-/-conversations-with-a-viennese-cabbie/ “The hubris that we live in the most sophisticated or interesting period in history is demolished by visits to museums, which show how people long dead, in cultures foreign to anyone alive today, had inner lives as rich, skills as masterful, and belief systems as limiting yet sufficient as our own. And most centrally, though inadvertently, museums prove that across millennia, art is what remains. Leaders die, political systems fail, societies crumble, languages morph, religions burn out and are replaced, but art survives, despite time’s ravages. https://randomembassy.com/023-/-tuesday-night-7pm-pbs/ Mon, 29 Nov 2021 12:54:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/023-/-tuesday-night-7pm-pbs/ One evening when I was 10 years old, I was in the living room alone. It was winter, dark already since 5 o’clock. My mother was at work for the evening, and my father was in bed early. I turned the knob on the television, until suddenly a futuristic red motorbike emerging from a cloud of flames flashed across the screen. The animation style was unlike anything I had ever seen in my familiar Saturday morning cartoons. https://randomembassy.com/022-/-meeting-the-dead/ Wed, 17 Nov 2021 06:54:21 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/022-/-meeting-the-dead/ WSZYSTKICH ŚWIÉTCYH We were in Krakow on November first. In Poland this day is known as Wszystkich Świętych (All Saints Day) or Dzień Zmarłych (Day of the Dead, which is the form of the name that was used during communist times). Throughout the day and into the evening, Poles visit the cemetery en masse to remember past loved ones by laying flowers and lit candles on the grave. They are sure to clean the graves a few days in advance, removing any old dead leaves or dirt. https://randomembassy.com/021-/-publishing-in-2021/ Sun, 31 Oct 2021 08:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/021-/-publishing-in-2021/ The reasons I started this newsletter were simple. The most fundamental among them is that I want to give myself a reason to write. To build the discipline to write 1000 to 1500 words every two weeks (many will scoff at how few words this is, but for me it’s a challenge). Writing for the newsletter gives me a way to think about things that attract my attention or curiosity, be it reflecting about changes in myself as I went through years of therapy, the process of moving to a new country, or living and working during an unprecedented global pandemic while entering into a new relationship and professional life. https://randomembassy.com/020-/-lets-meet-around-the-table-again/ Mon, 18 Oct 2021 12:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/020-/-lets-meet-around-the-table-again/ When Johnny Brenda’s changed their menu and hired a new chef, sometime around 2010 (I think it was then, but someone let me know if they have a better memory), I was disappointed. The bouillabaisse was suddenly no longer available. Tough times for me, for sure. I haven’t thought about this particular soup in easily over a decade, but this past week when the weather changed and announced that it was now definitively fall, the smell and color of the broth resurfaced in my mind and on my tongue. https://randomembassy.com/019-/-looking-for-a-home/ Mon, 20 Sep 2021 12:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/019-/-looking-for-a-home/ “I am convinced that a good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and taking on a specific richness…I think of the patina of age on materials, of innumerable small scratches on surfaces, of varnish that has grown dull and brittle, and of edges polished by use.”—Peter Zumthor Soon after I was born, my grandparents moved out of their home and back in with their four other siblings, reuniting the family under one roof for the first time in 20 years. https://randomembassy.com/018-/-images-from-haarlem/ Tue, 07 Sep 2021 08:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/018-/-images-from-haarlem/ Philadelphia is a 400 year old city, which is ancient by US standards. I was always attracted to the older buildings and neighbourhoods of the city, fascinated by everything from the architecture of factories, power plants, schools, train stations and homes, some of which itself was over 200 years old, down to the details of what sort of stones were used to pave streets. My Uncle John would tell me exciting stories about Philadelphia in the 30s, 40s and 50s. https://randomembassy.com/017-/-six-months-out/ Mon, 23 Aug 2021 08:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/017-/-six-months-out/ It’s been just over six months since I returned to working as a freelancer, and I thought it would be an opportune time to collect some thoughts and realizations. REMEMBERING WHY I WENT BACK TO FREELANCE WORK Just before the pandemic started, an old friend and collaborator of mine visited me in Amsterdam. We had worked together on numerous design projects in Philadelphia together as freelancers. He was still a freelancer at the moment, working regularly for a large corporate client. https://randomembassy.com/016-/-which-mask-are-you-wearing/ Sun, 08 Aug 2021 08:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/016-/-which-mask-are-you-wearing/ There are a lot of different identities, masks or suits of armor that you might decide are what make up who you are. You might even believe the mask or armor IS who you are. Sometimes it is armor we built during our teenage years, yet we wear it for our entire lives, despite the fact that back then we did not even know how to construct armor that would last for a long time. https://randomembassy.com/015-/-the-distance-to-the-horizon/ Sun, 25 Jul 2021 08:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/015-/-the-distance-to-the-horizon/ I initially planned to write a post about Haarlem, the city that I currently live in. But I find myself in Madeira, a small rocky and mountainous island about 850km west of Morocco. It’s the first time that I’ve taken a trip in nearly two years, and I thought it better to write about what that means. The decision to come here was made when the end of the Dutch lockdown was announced, sometime around the end of May. https://randomembassy.com/014-/-future-work/ Sun, 11 Jul 2021 08:41:34 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/014-/-future-work/ “The only condition of fighting for the right to create is faith in your own vocation, readiness to serve, and refusal to compromise.”–Andrei Tarkovsky When I left Philadelphia I worried that I would not be able to find work in the Netherlands. Or that it would be difficult to maintain contact with clients back in the US. Four years later, the opposite has proven true. Things have only gotten easier in many respects thanks to ever developing software based infrastructure and to a number of changes in the way we work and how we view our work. https://randomembassy.com/013-/-pandemic-habits/ Sun, 27 Jun 2021 07:39:14 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/013-/-pandemic-habits/ “Our strategy had not changed, but whereas yesterday it had obviously failed, today it seemed triumphant. Indeed, one’s chief impression was that the epidemic had called a retreat after reaching all its objectives; it had, so to speak, achieved its purpose."—Albert Camus, The Plague News outlets around the world announce the reopening of New York, Austin, Paris, St. Petersburg and Berlin. I walk along the Singelgracht in Amsterdam to visit a client and I see people out on terraces eating cheese, bread and croquet brunches on a Wednesday morning. https://randomembassy.com/012-/-intergenerational-travel/ Sun, 13 Jun 2021 07:33:58 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/012-/-intergenerational-travel/ “The psyche is not isolated from history, and psychology takes place not only in a small room between two people in two chairs walled off from the historical scene. History is in the room. And just as the psyche is situated in an historical present that trails behind it the roots of a thousand ancestral trees, so too does history have psychological existence. imperfect."―James Hillman I knew that my Great Grandmother Katarzyna on my mother’s side spoke five languages (Polish, German, English, Ukrainian and Russian). https://randomembassy.com/011-/-philosophy-is-useless/ Sun, 30 May 2021 08:00:16 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/011-/-philosophy-is-useless/ About three years ago I quit twitter, facebook and instagram. I am happy about this, but I do feel at times that I am out of touch. That I don’t know what is going on with friends, with family, and with developments or trends in areas of my professional or personal life that I’m interested in. And at times I do miss the social aspect of social media–the messaging, conversations, the back and forth. https://randomembassy.com/010-/-violence/ Sat, 15 May 2021 06:33:37 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/010-/-violence/ “Violence is man recreating himself.”―Frantz Fanon It’s 2004, and I am riding in a yellow taxi, returning to Center City Philadelphia from the airport. It’s a summer night, hot. The asphalt road appears slick with humidity, and I watch the reflections of traffic lights blur and mingle with the painted street crossings as we drive down Broad Street. I’m uncomfortable, but it’s not the weather. I was just in Los Angeles for work, it was even warmer there. https://randomembassy.com/009-/-the-world-as-classroom/ Sat, 01 May 2021 09:02:47 +0200 https://randomembassy.com/009-/-the-world-as-classroom/ “I believe that one can be an intellectual without being a nerd, provided one has a private library instead of a classroom, and spends time as an aimless (but rational) flaneur benefiting from what randomness can give us inside and outside the library. Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all these things make life worth living, compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of an empty-suit CEO with a preset schedule and an alarm clock. https://randomembassy.com/008-/-notes-to-my-designer-self/ Sat, 17 Apr 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/008-/-notes-to-my-designer-self/ “A true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place.” – David Whyte Over the past 4 months, I’ve begun to work again as a freelancer. As I take on new projects with clients in the US and the Netherlands, I wanted to have a clear sense of what I wanted from my work. https://randomembassy.com/007-/-how-languages-open-up-the-world/ Sun, 04 Apr 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/007-/-how-languages-open-up-the-world/ WHY LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE? One reason for creating the Random Embassy Papers was to explain why learning languages has been so important to me, how it has broadened my perspective, kept my mind sharp, and allowed me to connect with people all over the world. I also hope my writing here will encourage you to learn a new language if you aren’t already. Today I’m going to focus on the Polish, but first some context about my relationship to foreign languages. https://randomembassy.com/006-/-finding-a-reason/ Sun, 21 Mar 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/006-/-finding-a-reason/ "…For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us. They have entered the mainstream of life over which they no longer, in themselves, have power.” ― John Berger, Ways of Seeing I have a flat file back in Philadelphia. It sits there, untouched for almost four years now. Books, catalogues, screenprints, riso prints and drawings that I made, all lay alone in darkness. https://randomembassy.com/005-/-design-and-fighting/ Sun, 07 Mar 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/005-/-design-and-fighting/ In the summer of 2018, I began to learn Muay Thai. Training has been a major part of important life changes I’ve gone through in recent years, so I wanted to share some of the lessons that I have learned, and also explore the philosophical and practical connections between learning to fight and my personal and professional life. SURRENDER The first thing I learned was the importance of letting go of my ego. https://randomembassy.com/004-/-kasimirs-ring/ Sun, 21 Feb 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/004-/-kasimirs-ring/ When I was seven or eight years old, I noticed a signet ring my mother kept on her dresser. The ring stood out in heavy contrast to the delicate necklaces and earrings that she stored in the same wooden jewelry box. The ring was made of gold, and the initials “KP” were intricately engraved into it. The diameter of the ring indicated it belonged to a large man. “Mom, whose ring is this? https://randomembassy.com/003-/-leave-the-safety-of-home/ Sun, 07 Feb 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/003-/-leave-the-safety-of-home/ “The more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there; and he retraced the stages of his journeys, and he came to know the port from which he set sail, and the familiar places of his youth, and the surroundings of home…” ― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities GO TO THE PEOPLE Leave the safety of home. https://randomembassy.com/002-/-switching-from-freelance-to-full-time/ Sat, 23 Jan 2021 12:23:47 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/002-/-switching-from-freelance-to-full-time/ I NEVER HAD A JOB Before moving to Amsterdam, I worked as an independent designer and consultant for over 15 years. At times I had a number of people working for me out of my studio, and at other times it was just me working on a laptop out of my bedroom or local coffee shop. I really valued the freedom and flexibility that this lifestyle provided. I somehow managed to do all of this right out of college, and I never had a 9 to 5 job. https://randomembassy.com/001-/-going-back-to-school-at-37/ Mon, 04 Jan 2021 12:23:41 +0100 https://randomembassy.com/001-/-going-back-to-school-at-37/ GOING BACK TO SCHOOL AT 37 It’s been over three and half years since I left Philadelphia to take part in a graduate program at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. In unexpected ways, returning to school during my late 30’s played an integral part in my development as a designer and human. The Radical Cut-up, as the masters program was called, made me remember what I already knew, and realize that there was much more to discover.