iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

I choose to believe the designer of this random Transformers knockoff packaging I saw was making a direct reference to the cover artwork of Nine Inch Nails’ 1990 single “Sin”.

Nine Inch Nails album cover with an abstract design that looks like “5IN”.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

At the day job our design system is documented in Confluence. In a recent Confluence update all images have been stylized with rounded corners, which crop out the square corners of our many assets (the example here should be a fully square button). I don't […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 25/08/2026

Back around 2006 I had bought an Osborne 1A off eBay, an early “portable” computer from 1982. It was in great condition, fully functional, with original software disks. Looked amazing. Unfortunately somewhere between storage and moves I had lost it. I feel bad about it to this day.

Osborne 1A vintage portable computer in beige and dark grey colors. A small CRT display is horizontally nestled between floppy drives while the mechanical keyboard is embedded into a separate removable panel connected via cable.

110 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 18/08/2026

Engaged in some retail therapy at the design book shop today. I was also hoping to pick up Ruben Pater's “The Politics of Design”, but it was out of stock. Particularly looking forward to Silvio Lorusso's “What Design Can't Do” here!

020 2

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026

Had this bicycle scene in my head. Would love to make a seamless loop, but I'm assuming I'd have to switch to Blender's Geometry Nodes for that, which I've yet to dive into. The orthographic camera kind of obfuscates that its a 3D scene, but moving it helps. Had fun with it though!

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 02/07/2026

Lance Sells is an artist whose work I've appreciated for what must be 20ish years now. Checking in after some time it's great to see he's still producing work: lancesells.com. Beautifully abstract, dark, and inscrutable.

Abstract painting of pink illustrative figures against a light grey background.

Abstract mixed media artwork consisting of blue and red painted plywood, black faux fur, and other assorted items in a minimally juxtaposed geometric configuration.

Abstract graphite and colored pencil drawing displaying the impression of two figures embracing in the foreground with a background figure seemingly walking a dog.

Abstract oil painting consisting of rough horizontal bands of pink, deep red, and dark forest green, disrupted with the impression of low resolution digital distortion.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 03/06/2026

During a visit to Prague this past weekend I visited the Strahov ventilation tower, a brutalist concrete structure that vents air from the traffic tunnel below. The surrounding area includes striking government offices and Prahov Stadium, in a bit of […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Architectural photo displaying a glass and red brick structure against a cloudy blue sky.

A grey decaying brutalist concrete wall and door.

Architectural photo of brutalist glass and concrete structure against a cloudy sky.

Architectural photo of brutalist concrete tower against a cloudy sky.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 25/04/2026

Had a great time visiting the Mastering Type pop-up exhibition today at Kulturforum (www.smb.museum/en/museums-instituti…). Getting that IRL design inspiration!

A table top displaying a variety of colorful type specimen books.

A wall of posters displaying a variety of typeface designs.

A group of people are seated observing a typography lecture surrounded by walls displaying typographic posters.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 02/04/2026

Can not believe I got lucky enough to snag this. Signed 15th anniversary pressing of Machinarium soundtrack, edition of 10. Amazing.

Screenshot of Bandcamp website displaying description of Machinarium soundtrack LP and the label “You own this”.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 22/03/2026

Got to eyeball some Dieter Rams classics at the Deutsches Design Museum this weekend.

Braun T1000 CD portable radio, silver and black with small red accents.

Collection of Braun radio alarm clocks in white, black, and transparent plastic.

Braun Studio 2 modular hifi audio system.

Stark white and beige gallery space displaying a variety of objects designed by Dieter Rams.

020 2

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 20/03/2026

Appropriate album title for someone like me.

Album cover for the band Yazoo displaying the album’s title, “Upstairs at Eric’s”. Two mannequins are sitting at table, with their legs on the seats while their upper bodies sit on the table surface.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 16/03/2026

I randomly found this compilation “While at the Computer: Relaxing Instrumentals” on Apple Music and thought it might be tongue-in-cheek based on the presentation, but it appears to be sincere. Don’t miss their other collections “Relaxing Music for Sex […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Screenshot of Apple Music displaying the compilation “While at the Computer: Relaxing Instruments”. The cover art shows a keyboard and screen from a 90s-2000s era desktop computer.

001 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 14/02/2026

This was considerably more difficult than I expected but I managed it more or less! Luckily I found a tutorial for it with Geometry Nodes. It’s quite unrealistic on the underside, but easily hidden once it’s integrated in an actual scene.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 13/02/2026

Reminder to those of us designing software — it’s a much better experience when your UI remains stable during use. Buttons should not move when clicked. The positive example here is @ia Writer. No button chasing required.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 07/02/2026

@lake’s 2026 calendar finally made its way to me in Germany this week (postal service didn’t really make it easy to get). Regardless, it’s a very well illustrated calendar! Getting physical items from independent creators is giving me real mid-2000s internet community vibes. Feels great.

Photograph of a printed calendar displaying the month of February accompanied by a monochromatic line art illustration of an overgrown dilapidated sign.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 07/01/2026

National Film Board of Canada — a good logo.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 12/12/2025

This is such a great detail of Autechre’s Amber LP packaging. The barcode is printed on the back, but then continued over the edge and onto the inner gatefold, which would be hidden when shrink-wrapped and closed. For what’s otherwise extremely unembellished […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Photograph of the back of Autechre’s Amber LP packaging. A black and white barcode is printed flush to the left edge.

Photograph of the inner gatefold of Autechre’s Amber LP. The barcode is continued slightly, printed against the opposite edge.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 21/11/2025

A good album cover — Borghesia: No Hope, No Fear.

Album cover depicting a building at night. The artwork appears to have been created on a vintage computer, with a low fidelity style including pixelated shapes and CRT scan lines.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 15/11/2025

I wonder why so many app UI icons today aren’t pixel perfect. These are examples from Safari, Slack, Figma, and Obsidian. Is it somehow not practical to draw these for a default UI size? Lack of concern for low-res displays? In Live we put a fair amount of […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Screenshots of four different icons from application user interfaces. The icons are displayed at a magnified zoom level clearly showing a lack of pixel precision in their drawing.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 14/11/2025

Just a naturally lit beauty shot. (Please don’t scrutinize the patch, while it’s off I often randomly move cables.)

Photograph of a modular synthesizer sitting on a black round table. Set in front of a window, it’s lit by soft natural light.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 03/11/2025

Lazy question for my website-making friends — is there way with CSS to create this resizing behavior? I’d like to have a child element that is 66% wide when the parent is at its widest, and 100% wide when the parent is at its narrowest, with smooth resizing […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

100 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 22/10/2025

Very smart technology, yes very good.

Screenshot of Dia browser’s AI chatbot. I first ask if Dia runs on Chromium, it says no. Then I ask again and it says yes.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2025

This weekend I published a page outlining a concept for a speculative vector graphics editing tool focused on geometric shapes. I had put this together a few years back as a hack sprint project at the day job, but never got around to sharing it elsewhere […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Screenshot of the interface of a desktop vector graphics editing tool. A toolbar is on the left, property panels on the right, and some geometric vector artwork is placed on the canvas in the middle.

103 3

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2025

Been playing with a design for the inventory screen in my lo-fi urban walking simulator. Mostly happy with it so far! The text in the lower left corner is a terminal-style feed that’s also visible when the inventory is closed. Seems like it should remain […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Mockup of an inventory screen for a computer game. It features a grid of 3D item thumbnails each rendered in a low-fidelity 3D wireframe style. Text elements on the screen use a monospaced typeface. The background of the screen is black and all foreground elements are grey.

100 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 09/08/2025

New module acquired (number four), Toppobrillo Multifilter 2. I was looking for something that could morph between filters, and the people at Schneidersladen (great shop and people) recommended this beauty. Nice packaging too!

Photograph of a small brown cardboard box containing a modular synthesizer module. The box is sealed with a green sticker labeled “MF2” in a geometric typeface and includes some additional nicely designed technical details.

Photograph of a portion of a silver modular synthesizer rack with the aforementioned Toppobrillo Multifilter 2 module (black version) installed.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2025

[Slightly strange animated gif involving a toilet] Don’t mind me, just experimenting.

100 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2025

Still appreciating the design and colors of iOS game Eliss, originally released in 2009. Unfortunately rather difficult to find images and information about it these days, save for the Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliss

Various colorful screenshots of the iOS game Eliss. Each screen consists of circles of various sizes and pastel colors (yellow, pink, purple, blue) against a black background.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2025

The Ricoh GRIIIx is my first dedicated camera since about 2008, and it’s super nice. I can thank Merveilles for inspiring me to pick it up! Still lots to learn about taking a decent photograph, but I’m really enjoying it.

Photograph of a beige or white plastic chair casting a soft outdoor shadow in diffused light.

Photograph of a plastic construction barrier with orange lights on top, against a background of green plants. Slightly oversaturated and high contrast.

Photograph of green shrubbery pushed up against a green wire fence, slightly poking through. Soft, diffused lighting.

Photograph of an entrance hallway of an apartment building. The beige wall has a row of white mailboxes, and underneath them is a large pile of filled blue trash bags and other construction materials.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2025

And no Soundcloud, it’s not called “Manv Wavs”. Wonder if I’m the only one seeing it like that. 🥴

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 12/05/2025

Southern California is dang beautiful!

Photograph of green mountains of the Angeles National Forest taken from scenic overlook location.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 08/04/2025

Strong desire to try modeling rooftop ductwork the last few days.

Photograph of complex metal ductwork (air conditioning?) on the roof of a building.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 22/03/2025

Pretty sure I need an Infocom logo t-shirt.

010 1

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 21/03/2025

I spent some time playing with variable fonts today for the first time (yes, a bit behind here). And I have to say they seem pretty incredible. When working with smallish text on a standard resolution screen (I.E. not "retina") it feels like cheating to just […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 19/03/2025

Every time pasting an image into Figma (almost). And what am I usually pasting? Screenshots of implementations of in-progress Ableton features. Makes so much sense!

A screenshot of a message displayed in the Figma software UI that reads "Suggestion: AI Beta", with a button labeled "Find more like this".

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 10/03/2025

Saw some cool cows lounging about during a nice bike ride today.

Photograph of four black cows sitting on the ground in a field.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 08/03/2025

As an old school website maker it's somehow disturbing when a modern site's font size scales directly proportional to the viewport size. Coarse size adjustments for different device breakpoints, sure. But fully fluid with a calclated size of "35.821514px" just makes me uncomfortable.

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 04/03/2025

Forgot about this lo-fi disk caddy animation I had made a few years back. I was inspired after grabbing a free one that a neighbor was giving away (pictured). Sadly it's empty, I need some floppies. #theWorkshop

000 0

Eric Carl @ericcarl.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 23/02/2025

Okay, here's a lo-fi 3D walking simulator version of the first scene in Leisure Suit Larry. Not that you were keeping track, but it took longer than the day I originally aimed for. Happy I figured out how to get the light cone effect though! #b3d #theWorkshop

000 0