We merry filing cabinets
We merry filing cabinets
How a deceptively ordinary piece of office furniture transformed our relationship with information
Oh hello, oh good day.
Big hand wave from out here on the high plain of Mexico City.
It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen each other but I, like the flavors of fall, have returned!
Apologies for the absence.
My parents came to visit for two weeks. We took a cooking class and we made sopes and got drunk reading Diana Kennedy’s The Art of Mexican Cooking and visited Teotihuacan and ate at Pujol and Quintonil and my girlfriend taught us the Spanish card game Brisca, which is like playing Spades, but with a tarot deck?
Good times, good times.
Meanwhile, in the evenings, I found myself doodling a lot.
I’m not exactly sure why.
But I think I was inspired by AI art.
We’ve talked a lot about AI art around here.
It’s the big bad of the moment, you know.
It’s the evil, looming, faceless, final boss, the thing that can make creative decisions, but make those decisions without passions, or morality, or whatever ontological gimcrackery makes us human.
That’s the anxiety, at least.
But as I’ve been reading about text-to-image, something happened that I didn’t expect.
The more I used Midjourney to have art created for me, the more I started doodling on my own.
Now, I’ve always been a doodler. Used to draw comic books characters. Mostly Marvel stuff. This was the early 90s. Lately, I’ve also been reading The Filing Cabinet, an incredible book about how a deceptively ordinary piece of office furniture transformed our relationship with information.
And before I knew what was happening, I started doodling filing cabinets on my ipad.
That went on for some time, until suddenly and quite accidentally I’d doodled my way into some kind of comic book slash tone poem about office furniture.
Here it is below.
It owes a great deal to The Filing Cabinet, which you should buy immediately.
I doodled it using an app called Goodnotes.
Please be aware: Goodnotes is not a drawing app! It’s not meant to be Procreate. It’s delightful, though, and I recommend it for all your note-taking (and doodling) needs.
I hope you enjoy it.
It’s a bit more legible on desktop.
Waddya gonna do.
-s.
p.s. Hello to the 100-or-so new subscribers, who came by way of that retweeted twitter thread! We’re a jolly group of 1,500 now. Be aware that the format of this newsletter changes constantly! Sometimes it’s links about creativity. Sometimes it’s how-to resources, like this 12-step brand and content strategy workshop. Always it’s delightful. Welcome 💕
More delightful resources
12-Step Brand and Content Framework
The Creative Problem Solving Reading List
You don’t get it, you’re not the point
Make relationships, not things
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