Plan Your Next
Plan Your Next
#34: Design from the inside out
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#34: Design from the inside out

Hello! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next, a weekly newsletter that connects design and how we prepare for our next thing.

We’re just a couple shy of 150 subscribers, and I’d like to stay ahead of Kevin Rapp’s hilarious Full of Krapp newsletter. Consider sharing this if you found it interesting.

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What’s new from me this week?

✍️ I published an embarrassing story on debt, cutlery, and costumes. I’ve told this story to friends over the years, but I wanted to play with it on paper as it time jumps through multiple time periods.

🎙 My first guest appearance on Andrew Barry’s podcast, How Did You Learn That?

🎙 Reza and I released Episode #6 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic, where we talk about solitude vs loneliness, showing up, and personal finances.


Tearing apart the case of the first Apple Macintosh computer, and you would find signatures of forty-five individuals who collectively built it.

There are tens of thousands of people who used this brand new computer, who never knew. The insides of this brand new (1984!) computer mattered to Steve Jobs as much as the outside. It’s a unique balance that I often think about when it comes to design.

Successfully designed products aren’t solely about its aesthetics, but instead, how effective they are at understanding people.

Disney’s Inside Out is a story about Riley who is controlled by her emotions, where ultimately an imbalance occurs, and is what drives her to run away from home. It wasn’t until her emotion, Joy, was able to find a way to work with the other internal emotions to transform Riley into a more balanced human on the outside.

It’s like if your brain is the computer and your self-talk is the software that runs it. Riley’s actions weren’t fully aligned with what she was feeling, and it wasn’t until she confronted those feelings on the inside, to fully transform into a better version of herself.

Dieter Rams is a well-known German designer who’s known best for his time at Braun. He was known for designing from the inside to the outside. Every project began with the fundamentals of function and utility. He was known to hate the term, “beautification.”

“We never just wanted to make something beautiful. We wanted to make things better.”—Dieter Rams

Thinking from the inside out manifests its own beauty, both internally and externally. It’s the type of thinking that Steve Jobs, Riley, and Dieter all ended up pursuing in different ways.

What are some ways you think from the inside out?

🕰 Your next view of history

I’ve seen a few remarkable colored renditions of past footage, but this is something completely new.

These videos are upscaled using AI to auto-generate additional frames for your footage. 14 fps can be boosted and artificially colorized to 60 fps. Nuts.

✏️ Your next sketchbook

I’m a well-known fan of fountain pens, especially the German Lamy Safari, and this is my favorite sketchbook pairing. It’s the Japanese Maruman Mnemosyne A5 unruled variation, which sits about 1/2 the size of a letter. The paper is manufactured precisely for fountain pens that it doesn’t absorb too much ink. I’ve purchased about two dozen of these over the years, and I’ve never wanted to use much else.

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

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Plan Your Next
Plan Your Next
I'm Nate Kadlac, designer of Plan Your Next. A weekly newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.