I keep a few heavy books near my desk. Müller-Brockmann. Ruder. Hofmann. Moholy-Nagy. Each one is dense, deliberate, and full of diagrams that still hold power a hundred years later. None of them read like manifestos. They read like designers trying to leave a record of how they thought.
That generosity has
shaped a lot of how I work.
The grid is easy to take for granted. It shows up everywhere now: in Figma frames, component libraries, layout tokens. But in its original form, it was never just a tool for order. It was a way of thinking. A way to make decisions with respect for content, proportion, and rhythm.
When I open those old books, I am reminded that the grid was never meant to be worshiped. It was meant to be used, and selectively broken.
You can feel that in the work of that Swiss camp. Their restraint wasn't all about perfection. It was about attention. Every line, every interval, every decision had a reason. And when something did not fit, they adjusted. Quietly. Without drama.
That sense of care translates easily over to product design. A well-built system provides clarity, but only if you stay awake while using it. The moment you stop noticing, the grid stops helping.
Some Bauhaus books sit on the shelf right next to those Swiss volumes. Its story is impossible to sum up in a few lines. Whole careers have been spent studying it, and as such… it resists a simple definition. What resonates deeply with me is not just the architecture or the furniture or even the typography. But the intent behind it all.
The Bauhaus was built out of necessity, that generalization seems accepted. A generation of designers looking at a broken world and asking how to start again. Their questions feel familiar: What materials do we have? What do people need? What is essential?
I like that they documented their process so openly. That they turned teaching into a form of design. That their notes and sketches still circulate, helping people like me who've yet to set foot in Weimar or Dessau.
When I read about their idea of “total architecture,” I see a reminder that systems are not neutral. They carry values. They shape behavior. The Bauhaus treated design as a shared responsibility, not a style.
It’s a reminder that structure is only as alive as the attention behind it.
To be continued in…
Field Note — Places
