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My Love for Naïve Design This post may contain custom HTML and ...

2026-10-25T02:36:10Z

My Love for Naïve Design

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Do you remember skeumorphism? ¶
The era where everything aimed to look realistic. From app icons to desktop windows, complex shapes and 3D rendering techniques doing their best to replicate real-life elements on a digital surface. ¶
Skeumorphic icons from iOS 6, via thesyncedit.com.
One part of it that I still like to hold on to was MP3 players. All these different and cool UI’s you could pull up on your computer just to play music. Not one of them was “basic”; every single one struck out with its own unique personality. That spirit is something I still try to carry with this Android app called Classipod. ¶
Older MP3 players, via danq.me — who actually didn’t like how they looked! I heavily disagree.
I think we all eventually came to a consensus where we put the skeumorphism to rest. We understood that this attempt to bring the 3D to the 2D compromised on accessibility, and was constrained by the physical limits that real-life objects have. ¶
So we ditched it. We introduced flat, “material” UI. Lesser digital shadows and more shape uniformity. Buttons that changed color instead of moving “in” and “out” when pressed. We were no longer mimicking limited physical interfaces, so we got used to UI’s having infinite scrolls and dropdowns within dropdowns; software slowly losing its connection with its roots, which was reality. ¶
It all culturally made sense; we were coming from a time where computers needed to look less alien and more at-home, and the best way to do that was to make software look like everyday items you would have in your house. We’re much more familiar with technology now though, when smartphones exist in everyone’s hands and apps are monetarily free to install. ¶
In this modern present, looking at the same minimalist icons and button layouts on slightly different shades of white/black everywhere I go, I start wondering what it was we really gained from the shift. ¶
When I first started working on this site in January, I already knew I didn’t want it look like everything I was sick of. I wanted it to be as if you were opening my notebook, my photo album, coming to a corner of the Internet that wished you “Good Morning!” with a heartwarming chai ready for you in a weirdly quirky mug. ¶
I think I manifested it hard enough, because it didn’t take much rabbithole-ing for me to find all the elements that brought the current design of this site together. I’ve gotten all the un-uniformity and doodle-iness I wanted for this place, and it has made me feel cozy every time I have visited it myself. ¶
The homepage of my website as of writing.
Once this design was set up, I kinda just left it there and didn’t think about it. But then recently, I learned about this term called “Naïve Design”, referring to the trend of “anti-perfect” design elements that have come up in the recent year as “The Rise Against The Machines”. ¶
That sounds familiar…
Now that I know that I’m an unintentional ambassador of this trend, I have taken it upon myself to collect and showcase my fragment of it. With this, I welcome you to everything I love about naïve design. ¶
Handwritten Fonts
I see the creation of handwritten fonts as a top-notch exercise of free will. Ever since Comic Sans showed that you don’t need to have perfect curves, the font world seems to have stopped bodyshaming the alphabet. And I guess through that, people have started to believe that the best way to represent authenticity is through human handwriting. ¶
My choice for the site was “Sour Gummy” by Stefie Justprince, after going to Fontsource and looking for a font that was close to my own handwriting. There are actually many options to choose from now, with many of them being less quirky and more readable. I love it when designers execute their ideas and open-source them for the love of it. ¶
This is a test for some text written in this cool handwritten font.
Caveat by Impallari Type, via fontsource.org.
Some of them are definitely meant more to have a personality than be readable, though. For example, below is the display font I used for my app Graycie. ¶
This is a test for some text written in this cool handwritten font.
Chat Favour by Eko Bimantara, via fontesk.com.
The coolest aspect of this so far, is when normal people start converting their handwriting into a font they (and other people) can use online. ¶
I have no idea where it started or who did it first, but the web is full of examples of people sharing their handwriting for the world to use. The more “polished” ones include designers like Shantell Martin, who is dyslexic and wrote pangrams with a Staedtler marker that were traced into Shantell Sans. There’s also F37 Harriet by Harriet Richardson, which traces handwritings from her diary at three different ages of her life — when she was 4, 13 and 30. ¶
This is a test for some text written in this cool handwritten font.
Shantell Sans by Shantell Martin, via fontsource.org.
Another one I really adore is ABC Stefan by Stefan Marx, which stands out because it has multiple iterations of each letter, that it chooses between with the help of a randomizer. That font requires a license, so it isn’t following the open-source culture. But the story and math behind it is interesting nonetheless. ¶
Coming to the more personal examples, there are a plethora of bloggers who took in upon themselves to convert their handwriting into a personal font, as a prime showcase of whimsy. There’s Sacha Chua, who made a font using only free software and applied it to their blog titles (and they look awesome). There’s Edd Wilder-James who set out to build their own pipeline from handwriting to font, because existing solutions felt lacking to them. ¶
There’s also Croom by Adam Croom, who specifically talks about how flat design feels like its colonizing the web, and how the custom font was an attempt to make their digital presence uniquely theirs. I really resonated with the story behind it. ¶
The loveliest one out of the personal journeys though, is Cedarville Cursive. ¶
This is a test for some text written in this cool handwritten font.
Cedarville Cursive by Kimberly Geswein, via fontsource.org.
The designer Kimberly Geswein and teacher Catie Holt met through very unique circumstances, when their lives coincided during overseas training in China. It was just another day when Kimberly asked Holt if she wanted to convert her handwriting into a font, gave her the grid paper, and published the result. That font is used by over 98,000 websites today, and ranks 9th in Kimberly’s own 22 published fonts. ¶
I think what I’ve learned through all of these, is that every single font — even the non-handwriting ones — have a deep history of stories and decisions behind them. I have felt this before too, when reading through TypeTogether’s blog and seeing them explain the details behind a font. People making fonts are very cool. ¶
Editor’s Note: I love unconventional fonts, but they can come at the price of making it more difficult for readers (and people in general) to interact with your web home. It’s something I learned the hard way. So I always recommend having a simpler way for people to read, like I do here.
Doodle Icons
So far, I have seen icons hold a huge responsibility on their shoulders. They’re meant to convey something that would usually take multiple words to communicate. “Go to your shopping cart,” or “duplicate this,” or “I need to contact support.” Maybe it’s even weirder that we can understand something so verbose from just a drawing. I’ll leave a reminder for myself to dive into this later. ¶
I’m not sure what led me to use Khushmeen Sidhu’s Doodle Icons. It might be that she was one of the first people to pop up when searching “doodly icons”, or it could be one of the hundreds of design posts I’ve saved on Instagram. But nevertheless I found myself sitting in front of her Gumroad page when starting work on this site, and immediately thought that it fit. ¶
Some of Khushmeen’s Doodle Icons as seen on SVG Repo.
Now when I was first starting this post, I was going to admit that having simpler icons leads to better accessibility for more people. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s better to have icons like these instead; drawings that better represent something we know and see in everyday life. I’m not sure. ¶
There are hurdles I face here and there, ofcourse. It’s hard to distinctly show detailed icons at smaller sizes, meaning that I shouldn’t use the icons when components reach a certain scale. There’s also a relatively limited library, which is not a constraint I’m facing right now. But if I ever do, I’d love to commission Khushmeen myself with a request to extend the library. I’ve gotten the current icon set for free, after all. ¶
The only other extensive library I found in this area was one by Streamline Icons. Now that’s extensive, with over 11,000 icons in their paid version. But when I look at so many different icons and versions, I start wondering who it was that worked on each individual one. And I do not know. ¶
Maybe it is a craving for the artisanal, but when I see something hand-drawn or hand-written the idea in my head is that it’s done by someone. A person or a group of people. In the case of Doodle Icons, it might just be that the personal-ness of it makes me want to use the icon set even more. And I’m glad to do so. ¶
I also like how much this website’s design opposes the current era of the web. In a world where LLM’s and people using them keep trying to mimic humans and generate more “realistic” work, there are a cluster of humans who’ve gone, “Well, can you mimic this?” and made things that would be considered messy or careless. But to me, they still have a thousand times more care than someone who generated “art” with an LLM from a couple half-baked sentences. ¶
Human Physics
Oof, alright. I’ve dedicated quite a few paragraphs to fonts and icons there. My apologies, I’m quite passionate about this. ¶
So far, we’ve looked at things that already have a set template to be converted to their digital form — type designers were already using grid papers for designing fonts when digital software didn’t exist. But what do you do about something that can’t be framed inside a rectangle? Like the edge of torn paper or the unevenness of a human circling something? ¶
The answer, more often than not, is “randomness”. ¶
This is a test for some text written on a piece of torn paper. Aren’t the edges cool?
I don’t know what I was searching for when I stumbled across TornPaper.js. It’s this JavaScript library that was last updated almost three years ago, and uses <feTurbulence> in SVG’s to create an artifical texture using Perlin noise. ¶
I really liked the scrapbook-y feeling that the texture brings, but having extra JavaScript load at runtime was too much. So I made my own version of it which runs at build-time, and keeps the edges consistent across reloads. I’m using it for the Facets on my About page right now, and it looks great. ¶
Some of the Facets I currently have up, though I’m yet to finish writing their content. :P
It’s cool how pattern recognition comes into play when we’re looking at digital things and trying to find what connects them to something we know. A trash can intuitively becomes a place to throw away things, and dragging an item turning into a hand holding the file to show that you’ve picked it up. The familiarity aspect is underrated, and I wonder if the same “familiarity” is what makes unpolished design feel cozy. ¶
The last item, which I only found like last month, is Rough Notation. Yet another JavaScript library, except this one animates drawing and underlining and highlighting on any piece of text you want. You can box something in, circle the important bits, strike out the things you changed your mind about, or just cross them off entirely. Annotations can have different styles/colors, and you can even disable the animation if you’re not into it. ¶
Apply Rough Notations
Reset Notations
This library itself stands on the shoulder of another giant called Rough.js, by the way, which can create hand-drawn graphics and is already used by apps like Excalidraw and Diagrams.Net. There’s even a bracket style, which I’m mentioning just so I can demo it. ¶
I don’t think I’m going to use Rough Notation any time soon though, because I used to be one of those kids in school that would underline words with a ruler. It seems weird to underline messy handwriting with a immaculate line, looking back. But that’s just a part of who I am now. ¶
This site has received much love from people since its publication in February, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I had an idea in my head that I was able to successfully apply, but it wouldn’t have been possible without all the artists that leave their work open for public use. They deserve all the love they receive. ¶
As time goes on and I grow as a person, this site receives updates in the form of new content and new pages. Not all of them find a place easily, which makes me wonder from time to time whether the design of the site needs to change. I really love how the site looks, but I also don’t want to put myself in a box when Abhi.Now isn’t even a year old. ¶
So this place may change one day. The font might become more readable and the icons might have more color. The aesthetic might change from a pocket notebook to a printed textbook. But the one thing I will try my best to do is keep the human touch. Stay naïve, and be the designer of your own life (or something like that). :) ¶
This post originally began on 19th July, 2026. The draft was rotting for a long time in a very unfinished state; mostly just three headings about fonts and icons and physics.
It was only a couple days ago, when I told yet another person about how I’m working on this draft, and they asked me, “Would you really just give away how your website works like that? You’re fine with someone else re-using it?” And I paused for a bit before realizing that my answer was, “You know what? Hell yeah. More people should be doing things like this.”
So here we are, three months later. You never know when the motivation/inspiration/whatever will strike.

https://abhi.now/blog/my-love-for-naive-design/

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Why I Write I’m currently in an ongoing, self-imposed writing ...

2026-10-20T03:27:10Z

Why I Write

I’m currently in an ongoing, self-imposed writing crunch, where I’ve told myself that I won’t share any blogposts (and revel in the subsequent attention) until I finish all my drafts. ¶
This has led me to scratch my head and stare into space for hours, at this point. I’ve even stayed up till 2AM sometimes to try and phrase things a certain way; gone back and forth between different wording structures, and even sometimes said, “to hell with it,” and pressed publish right before going to sleep. That last one would be considered maniacal by some people, and I would gratefully agree. ¶
You’re probably wondering why I am doing this to myself. I am too. The short answer is that I don’t know. But you can watch me grapple with the long one below. ¶
Annual Day 2011 @ Army Public School, Missamari.
I have been doing communicate-y things for a long time. From narrating a school play in 5th Grade to hosting large events in college. I like to put my scrambled thoughts out into the world and see how people react to it. Not all reactions bring me joy, but more often than not I’m glad that the thoughts are out there and not left with me. ¶
I’m sure it was a not-so-gentle push by my parents for me to attend all these oration and debating competitions — side effects of being an army brat — but over time I developed a taste for it. Preparing my words, memorizing them while walking in circles, and then finally presenting them on a stage. I can’t remember if I had an urge to win; in most cases the attention I received was enough. But that is the root of my journey. ¶
Filling in the crossword with two pens, for some reason.
Writing was almost always a side-effect. Pen and paper were the omnipotent tools of the school student, and what you wrote with/on them was completely up to you. The 5-mark answers with the blue pen made a semi-permanent callus on my ring finger, and that callus made it easy for me to write for even longer. ¶
One of these essays — one that stuck with me heavily — was Reliance’s Drishti Essay Competition in 10th Grade. A nation-wide event with the promise of great recognition in its advertising. The habit of participating superseded any hesitation to apply, and soon I was sitting in front of an empty page in the classroom with a prompt written in front of me. ¶
"India — Land of Joy"
I don’t remember racking my brain over the prompt much. I just wrote a few long pages about how my dad’s unique profession (did I mention I’m an army brat?) gave me the opportunity to look at different cultures and see how they all thrive and live together within the same borders. I might have written something about how seeing it all shows you why the country is worth protecting, I don’t know. Maybe I should look for that essay again. ¶
I didn’t expect to hear back about the essay, until I did. An announcement followed by much applause in the Assembly Hall. A silver medal received from the Principal. My name was printed alongside many in Reliance Foundation’s Annual Diary that year, and my mom has kept it safely with her as a memento since. ¶
The only photo I currently have of the medal.
The attention from it all was temporary, as it always is. But the takeaway I had from the event — the one that my reason to write revolves around — is resonance. ¶
I remember hearing somewhere that a casual remark or a passing comment from one person can cause a deep shift in another without the intention to do so. I have experienced moments like these myself, some of which I document here, so I can tell it’s true. And while I don’t always pass remarks as casually as a fart, I can imagine that other people collect unintended snippets from my writing too. ¶
That, really, is my main reason to write publicly. To leave my thoughts in a place where other people can pick them up, read through them, and maybe find something that sticks with them. ¶
And I can tell it works, because lot of the posts here that have gotten love have been ones that weren’t aiming to be read: ¶
My post about lo-fi tech that excites me was primarily a collection/shopping list for me to look back on in the future, but it somehow reached around 40 thousand views per the anonymous analytics. It spawned enthusiastic comments on forums like Lobste.rs and Hacker News, and ended up in people’s inboxes through many newsletters. The post also got me added to Kagi’s SmallWeb, which I’m grateful for,
My letter to my college juniors stemmed from many juniors reaching out to me with their troubles, all revolving around what they were facing in college. The letter was my effort to provide a response worthy of their collective time,
My posts about the protests of July 20th and October 10th were an effort to show dissent in a place where it could reach other people without being forcefully shut down by the State, and,
My weeknotes remain a place where every week of my life leaves a footprint — an evidence that I was there and did something in it — which also happens to give bits of joy to people when they read it and sometimes find their names in it.
Another reason, which that last point brings up, is the urge to archive everything. ¶
I, hopefully like everyone else, worry about death from time to time. In that worry, I sometimes wonder if I might die with some final wise words left unsaid that could have left one last resonating wave. An instance of the Butterfly Effect left undiscovered for the worse. ¶
I can tell this is a little much, because I have sometimes mentioned leaving my domain name or my web bookmarks or my TBR/TBW as a part of my will, and seen people’s eyes widen with an unconvinced, “Sure, okay.” It might be a little eccentric, but I’m the same person who once took a junior’s comment about my writing being “idiosyncratic” as a compliment, so I’m okay with it. ¶
Attempts at writing out a quote as a reminder for myself.
There are other tiny reasons that orbit around these principles too, ofcourse. My public blogging era began because I was sick of my profession and my hobby both being programming, and needed to do something that wasn’t writing code. God might have listened to me too well on that front, because even programming work mostly revolves around writing normal sentences right now. ¶
The other, final, last-but-not-the-least, cherry-on-top reason, is just IndieWebClub. A community that attracts the writers, the tinkerers and the curious. People who keep doing cool new things and like to talk/write about it. There’s always so much to learn and consume, and all of it leads to my wish to write even more and give back. To share my thoughts that came from their thoughts. To talk and laugh and learn. ¶
I hope we, as people, find more communities and third places like that for ourselves. That we find more places to dance and talk and mingle. More places to find other people. Because all writing, even when benefiting oneself, is still for other people. ¶
A snapshot from towards the end of the IndieWebClub Special Edition Meetup, 2026.
It’s about 4AM as I write this. Eyelids are getting heavier but I’m also getting slightly hungry. Wouldn’t it be funny if I just post it and sleep? The blog will come full-circle and all that. Fine fine, I’ll edit and post tomorrow. Peace and love. ¶

https://abhi.now/blog/why-i-write/

#write #army #school #essay #grade #annualday #joy #armypublic #pen

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My Favourite Art from October 10 “October 10” here refers to ...

2026-10-17T02:35:19Z

My Favourite Art from October 10

“October 10” here refers to the entire (still ongoing) period of the SIR protests. If you aren’t informed yet, you can read more on Wikipedia and watch (my GOAT) Samdish’s video. ¶
This collection was originally much larger than it is right now, but I learned that a lot of the posts I saved have been taken down since under the State’s rigorous banishing of free speech online. You can read the Internet Freedom Foundation’s coverage on this. ¶
They ironically call it “enhanced diligence”, which is something they could have shown when crimes of rape and abuse became rampant all across the country. ¶
Unmute
Via @meancurry on Instagram.
Via @santapollutant on Instagram.
Via @sanitarypanels on Instagram.
Via @hitesh.sonar on Instagram.
Via @soumyadip.sinhart on Instagram.
“हमारा ठोकरों से कुछ पुराना ख़ास नाता है।
है जिसने इश्क़ ही देखा ना, वो रब का दुलारा है।”
– Taare by Farak
Via @ash.bagchi on Instagram.
Unmute
Via @namamoco on Instagram.
Via @soumyadip.sinhart on Instagram.
Via @anmol.moss on Instagram.
Via @bakeryprasad on Instagram.
Via @anirban_ghosh on Instagram. A beautiful series of images, I recommend reading through the whole thing.
Via @srftioutloud on Instagram.
Via @ritweakranjan on Instagram.
Via @anmol.moss on Instagram.
Via @anirban_ghosh on Instagram.
Via @soumyadip.sinhart on Instagram.
Via @ash.bagchi on Instagram.
“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent.”
– Marwan Makhoul
Unmute
Via @meancurry on Instagram.
Via @manjultoons on Instagram.
Unmute
Via @shivamsachdeva7 on Instagram. Just something I found while scrolling and was laughing at for a long time.
Via @bakeryprasad on Instagram.
Via @humour_ink on Instagram.
Some of this artwork might involve AI use. I don’t mean to demean real artwork by putting both in the same space; I appreciate real effort and skill achieved through hard work, and the toil that artists put into every single piece. But I also think everyone in a democracy has the right to dissent, and excluding alternative forms of expression at a time like this would be neglectful of me. ¶
I don’t know, my stance here is still a work in progress. But I find all exercising of our freedom of speech and expression cool as hell. ¶

https://abhi.now/blog/favourite-art-from-october-10/

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