If you were into design and business podcasts between 2019 and 2022, you might remember Signal337. We ran for 100 episodes, covering everything from job applications and education to business strategy, the early rise of AI, and how to actually get something out of a conference. At 100 episodes, it felt like I’d said what I set out to say, so I let it go quiet.
Since then, Signal337 has mostly lived as the doing-business-as name behind my freelance work, separate from the podcast that shared its name. I’ve spent the last few years deep in large enterprise SaaS, learning a lot about what actually matters when organizations, teams, and individuals try to build something people trust, whether that’s a product, a service, or a personal brand. The answer keeps coming back to the same thing: good design, done with care.
So I’m done keeping the two halves apart. Signal337 is becoming one thing: a studio for the work I want to do, built on everything I’ve learned over 20 years in design, research, branding, development, strategy, and product.
Some of that will look familiar. The podcast is coming back, and there will be video too. But the bigger shift is in the work itself. This isn’t my day job with a different logo on it. It’s selective, concrete project work with people and companies I genuinely align with, plus a return to my roots in publishing: books, games, and helping other people publish their own work. There’s also a real commitment to nonprofits here. Organizations that are underserved and need design or strategy help but can’t easily access it will be able to get that from me, free.
None of this works without some ground rules, so here’s what I’m building it on:
- Do no harm. Design’s version of the Hippocratic oath. Every project gets measured against it.
- Don’t half-ass the work. What you think you need is usually one slice of a bigger pie. Part of my job is helping you see the rest of it, whether that’s market research, user research, or something you hadn’t considered yet.
- We design in the open, together. I’m not interested in a purely transactional, services-for-hire relationship. I want real partners: people I invest in the way I’d want them to invest in me.
- This has to be sustainable. Signal337 is going to grow slowly and with quality, not by chasing billable hours. I have a day job. This isn’t about getting rich fast; it’s about doing work that’s actually worth doing.
It’s been a while. I’m glad to be bringing this back and even more glad about what it’s becoming.