Coordinates. I’m writing this newsletter on the porch of my terrace in Berlin. The sun is making a sudden and extended appearance, just in time for a new issue of Christel’s Corner, my essayistic newsletter on design and everyday life—welcome!

A Matter of Technique. I’m getting back into sports! Besides my twice-a-week swimming habit, I take dance classes, Contemporary Ballet. I’ve been dancing since I was five, mostly ballet. When it comes to sports, I seem to pick practices that follow a rigid system. I am interested in exercises that allow (or even demand) a rigorous technique and constant improvement.

Swimming seems to be a sport where you can never be precise enough, constantly dissembling the movements into their parts, and putting them back together. In ballet, it’s similar; an art form that looks so tender but requires enormous precision. Fix that tondu. Bring up your chest. Jump with more strength, but look like a feather. Don’t forget to breathe. Then again: the music. The best part; the bit that adds the poetry.

I’m trying to apply this ambivalence to my design practice, too. I like the constant back and forth between organic experiments and technical expertise. There is [A], the chaotic and poetic part of finding visual metaphors, building a storyline, combining colors, reading between the lines. And then there is [B], the technical part, a high level of structure: from well-maintained Figma components to semantic code and a neat project management setup. Like in dance, chaos is just as relevant as order. Creativity demands play, and at the same time, it is a muscle that can be trained. A technique that can be endlessly analyzed, dissembled, and put back together to create something new.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t found much joy in adding “artificial intelligence” into my creative workflow. I am critical and curious about what it can do to our tools, but so far, I enjoy the artisanal process way too much. “The muse visits during the act of creation,” as film critic Roger Ebert stated, keeps coming back to my mind. And just like the famous Runner’s High after sports, what’s better than being visited by the muse herself?!

Writing = Design. I’m excited to give my Writing = Design workshop at UdK again this year! Together with Sonja Knecht, we’re exploring text as a design tool. One week of writing, doesn’t that sound fantastic?! June 1–5, 2026, in Berlin. Would love to meet you there. More info and signup here!

From the sketchbook. I recently started documenting my drawings and thought process through Instagram reels. While I don’t love creating stuff solely for that gated community, it was fun editing and arranging video snippets. Have a look: a video about doodling / a video about science / a video about drawing computers.

Christel’s Corner. Since 2016, this newsletter has been called Christel’s Corner. I use the name erratically, but I still like it. Recently I learned that Anthropic has their retired model Opus 3 write its own, machine-generated newsletter “Claude’s Corner.” However, it hasn’t been very productive yet, and I hereby am happy to state that I don’t care much. I’ll keep the name, as the internet has many corners, and this is mine! I’m glad you’re here. This newsletter is all hand-crafted, without any machine-text-generation involved. Thank you for reading! Yours truly—Christoph