Welcome to Better by Design!

Nice to meet you. I’m Pat, and this is my home for writing on the Internet.

I'm a technologist on a mission to bring better craft to the tech world.

I've had an unusual career over the last 12 years:

• I designed UX for billion-dollar enterprise software startups

• I built UI for a consumer finance behemoth

• And I crafted communication strategies for some of the world's top brands.

Product design, software engineering, and brand strategy all rolled into one. It's a powerful, complementary skill set primed to help modern creators excel.

What’s my writing like? I’d say it’s a little like what you'd get if Seth Godin and Lenny Rachitsky had a design brainchild.

I want to help my readers thrive in the new age of creative work. Thrive professionally, by thinking strategically about their business and the tech landscape. And thrive personally, by crafting a life that allows their creativity to flourish. More than anything, I want to help them make an impact and build a rich creative life.

Now let’s get building!

🗓️ What you can expect from me

I publish weekly on Sundays.

I try to keep posts succinct (5-10 min). High signal, low noise.

I also post daily on LinkedIn & X/Twitter.

📚 FREE resource for new subscribers

As a thank you for subscribing, I created a Notion database of community-vetted books curated specifically to power creative growth. I’m confident you’ll find useful guidance in this collection no matter which part of your creative business toolkit you want to improve! All you have to do to get it for yourself is subscribe and check your email. 💚 ✉️ 👇

💚 Support for Better by Design

Thousands of talented tech professionals and entrepreneurs around the world love Better by Design. We’re not just a community of designers; we’re a supportive, multidisciplinary group of creative professionals who care about bringing more great design into the world. Now that’s powerful!

🏁 Start here

There are 120+ articles in the archive now, so here are a few to get you going.

Creativity & Innovation

• The Dawn of the Tech Generalist Renaissance
  Embracing multidisciplinary skills at the frontier of innovation

• 5 Proven Sets of Design Principles and How I Use Them
  Tried and true guidelines for crafting great quality, high-impact designs

• Why Creatives Should Treat Their Work Like Athletic Training
  Replacing the 40hr grind with deliberate cycles of focus and rest

Strategy & Business

• Default It of Design It
  Cutting through design decision complexities with a no-nonsense heuristic

• The Era of Design Entrepreneurship
  Emerging opportunities for entrepreneurial designers in the new age of work

• The Design IMPACT Framework
  A 6-step process for taking action and driving change in restrictive corporate environments

Career & Personal Growth

• 24 Things I Know After 10 Years in Tech, I Wish I’d Known in Year 1
  Lessons learned and wisdom gained in the tech trenches.

• Why I Burned Out and How I'm Recovering
  Sharing my experience with career burnout so that others might avoid my fate

• My Pathless Path Into Technology, Design, and Beyond

  How a liberal arts kid becomes a brand strategist, an engineer, a designer, and whatever's next