Hello again. Michael here. We’re coming to you after a summer off, taking a break from teaching and writing for a bit. When we published our book early last year, the world turned upside down shortly afterward, but it was still an amazing, busy year.

It was also exhausting.

A friend of mine at work recently was talking about how she just bought a house, and is intentional about making sure that she doesn’t just spend all her time outside of her job working on her house. It was a great reminder of how real rest requires intentionality and boundaries. We’re grateful for some time to do just that.

We also went on a real-ass vacation together! Last month, Andy and I flew down to Arizona to visit content pal Scott Kubie and spend some time exploring the desert. After more than a year of only seeing each other on the occasional video call, it was like breath of fresh air to spend some time with wonderful, vaccinated friends.

How are you? What have you been doing to find rest? Feel free to hit reply and let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

What we’re doing

October 25-27 Writing is Designing workshop →

We’re squeezing another workshop in before the end of the year! Join us in October for a workshop where you get to learn how to bring writing and design together. We’ve loved doing these over the past year, but honestly, we think the past attendees are the best people to tell you about it. Here’s what one recent participant said:

It was hands down the best workshop I’ve ever attended. It had the right mix of theory and practice. It was also a very inclusive space which made it easier to share and learn from others. I’ve recommended the workshop to friends and colleagues, including a few product designers!

We’d love it if you join us. Use the code NEWSLETTER to get $100 off. We’re also giving away four equity scholarships(be sure to apply by October 10th to be considered).

Andy’s hiring a senior content strategist →

Come work with me (Andy) at Adobe Design! Our team is growing, and we’re hiring someone to work on our Creative Cloud collaboration tools that span across products, services, and platforms. This position — on this product team — is poised to make a huge impact on the way Adobe allows users to do creative work and collaborate with each other. You can find more details at the link, or drop me a LinkedIn message if you have any specific questions.

What we’re reading

Michael:

Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong →

I’m especially recommending this book to people in UX. There are so many conversations in our field about designing accessible experiences, but very little understanding of why that access is so important or how it fits into the lives of the people who use the things we design. This book is filled with powerful stories and perspectives. It’s so important.

Andy:

The Corporate Terminologist by Kara Warburton →

Okay, so it sounds a bit dry, but this book, about principles and methods for managing terminology in content production environments — especially at large organizations — is unique and really important to a project my team is working on: setting up and establishing a UX terminology management practice.

Pencil of the month

CWPE Camel pencils

This is a bittersweet one, folks. Our favorite pencil shop on the whole world, CW Pencils Enterprise, is closing in November. They had these pencils custom-made with their branding, and this is the last chance you have to snag some. Design nerds will love the integrated eraser and everyone else will love how amazing they are to write with. When we wrote this, they still had some of the 2B boxes left, so get em’ while you can!