ITC 24. Triggers
Sketches, icons, visual ID & more
Welcome again to a more work-related In the Cave! Like hamsters usually do, I’ve been stockpiling papers and cotton balls in my cave to hibernate through the coming winter. Super cosy 👌
→ Reflections
I don’t know if there’s a term in psychology or neurology to refer to those stimuli—be they auditory, visual, olfactory…—that automatically take us back to a past moment or sensation. They’re like spontaneous shortcuts to corners of our minds we can’t normally explore.
I imagine they could bring trauma and suffering, but I only experience positive sensations. Curiously, the most powerful stimuli in my case are olfactory. In particular, the smell of olive oil brings back childhood memories.
I remember summer evenings when we would decide to have dinner as a family in the middle of the forest with my grandparents, when they were still alive. There was always a big salad with fresh vegetables, generously drizzled with aromatic olive oil. And between bites, I had time to run among the fallen branches, smelling the pine resin, and enjoying the sound of water running through the nearby fountains.
Sometimes these flashes of the past barely last a second, and part of you wishes you could stretch that moment out a little longer.
I remember a story arc in the Japanese series Mister Ajikko that revolved around a chef and gourmet, Ajiou, an important character in the series, who had fallen into a coma from which he couldn’t emerge unless he could experience one of those triggers in the form of the “lost flavour.” I thought it was an exaggerated but interesting way of representing that need to go back and access that something you long for but can’t quite put your finger on, and that a random sensation could unexpectedly lead you to.
Imagine being able to summon your happiest moments, your most active and powerful moods, or your instants of peaceful melancholy at will. Almost like potions in a video game!
What are your triggers for past memories? :-)
New sketches
You guessed it. Starting with some sketches from these last few days. I’m realising that they function as a small warm-up for the reader (you) ;-)
That cyborg-boxer up there is actually a free reinterpretation of a character I drew eight or nine years ago. It’s interesting to observe the transition from a more blocky, geometric style to something more lively and expressive. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily an improvement, but I definitely like it better and I can see a more mature approach.
Let me know which one is your favourite!
Reedsy Studio Templates
I’ve recently worked on 40-something micro-illustrations, acting as identifying ‘icons’ for something cool that has been released for Reedsy Studio: Templates, offering guided prompts to help organise your ideas.
The images had to be simple enough to work as standalone or group icons, yet exciting enough to generate interest among writers and regular users.
Here’s the sketch I did for a good part of the existing icons (so far). It’s always helpful to have them in the same place so you can see them as a whole. Working at very small sizes also helps you avoid getting lost in the details and focus on the main element:
All of them had to work in two states: 1) a full-colour icon and 2) a soft grayscale placeholder for some UI bits:
As always, the balance in terms of abstraction and finish was delicate. Each illustration is actually quite simple on its own, but together they form a coherent mosaic. Here’s a partial sample of some finished illustrations:
In a way, this collection helps define the identity of the project and we’ll probably be using them for marketing purposes from now on. Which is that ideal spot in which illustration works towards branding.
→ A thought
From sites to objects?
Tobias van Schneider shared this statement on X some weeks ago. He doesn’t like it and probably you won’t either. But I feel there’s some truth in it:
The web is shifting from sites to objects. Websites will eventually become obsolete, they’re not the primary interface anymore (more of a luxury, brand artifact). The essential layer will be object-driven.
Think of it like fragments of functionality, content snippets or commerce detached from their host domain. Objects are portable, context aware and injected into your feeds at the point of need. The browser tab becomes redundant. The feed becomes the medium. The object becomes the web.
Reedsy Novel Sprint
More Reedsy stuff: this year, a new writing event has launched! We had little time to define many factors. So from a design perspective, we entrusted a good part of its visual identity on a big hero image that we used on SM, open graphics, YT and some other places.
The illustration, art directed by Matt Cobb (Reedsy’s co-founder) presents a group of writers about to start a race/challenge, each of them representing a different genre (romance, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery), with a central character that was slightly more neutral, but still carrying large objects, easily legible in the composition:
Some of the foreground elements are actually scalable vector graphics, and the background is just a CSS gradient, so the full header could scale as efficiently as possible.
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⚠️ See you next month on the last Recommendations-only edition of 2025!
Read a previous story:
Lo que más me retrotrae a un momento de la infancia como el que comentas es el olor a galletas Príncipe recién mojadas en leche caliente. Me traslada ipso facto al saloncillo de mi primer hogar, en una mañana de sábado o domingo donde todo parecía posible.
Increíble la selección de esbozos e ilustraciones. Me ha encantado la de la cosmonauta cuya escafandra tiene forma de cabeza; es de las que te hace pensar, ¿cómo es que nadie ha usado una idea tan genial como esa?
Las ilustraciones me han parecido brillantes en su conjunto. Algunas me recuerdan mucho al excelente trabajo que hiciste con los objetos para el inventario de Drácula: Rastro de Sangre.