Key Takeaways from Refactoring UI

  • Start in grayscale: Designing without color early on prevents you from getting overwhelmed by stylistic choices and forces you to focus on layout, contrast, and visual balance first.
  • Prioritize visual hierarchy: A clear visual hierarchy is the single most important element of an effective interface design.
  • Embrace whitespace early: Start with more whitespace than you think you need; it is far easier to remove excess room later than it is to squeeze it in after the layout is crowded.
  • Build a design system upfront: Establishing a design system at the beginning saves significant time and eliminates repetitive decision-making down the road.
  • Be intentional with sizing units: Make deliberate choices between relative sizing (grids, percentages, em/rem) and absolute constraints (fixed pixel scales, max-width) depending on the context.
  • Use systematic color palettes: The book serves as an excellent practical framework for building and applying cohesive, functional color systems.

Quick Notes on Some Books & Movies I Read/Watched Recently

Books

My son has been obsessed with Spider-Man since June. After taking him to the Spider-Man exhibition at Griffin MSI several times over the summer, those trips ended up piquing my own interest in comic books.

  • Tender – Beth Hetland: Interesting topic, but not subtle at all.
  • 5,000 Kilometers Per Second – Manuele Fior: The characters are so bland, and the story was just okay.
  • Monster – Naoki Urasawa: I love the art style, and the story is really good.
  • Blood on the Tracks – Shuzo Oshimi: Best manga I’ve read in a while. Outside of Death Note, this is the only manga I could binge in a single sitting. The way it captures a toxic family dynamic feels painfully realistic. It’s also one of the rare series where the manga medium feels uniquely suited to the story.

Movies

  • The Suicide Squad (2021): The first half is amazing, but the second half devolves into typical superhero movie tropes.
  • Obsession (2025): The execution is really clunky. The film is okay, but definitely overhyped.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022): Super creative and unhinged—easily the most artistic film I’ve seen in a while. On the other hand, the underlying plot feels pretty cliché, especially the ending. This Reddit review really resonates with my thoughts on it.
  • The Substance (2024): : Amazing, though it could have been slightly shorter. The acting was fantastic, and the visual direction was executed perfectly.