Anton Sten
Sharing the insights I’ve uncovered about design and strategy is a not-so-secret passion of mine. The design industry is constantly changing, growing, and redefining itself and I’d love to share what my more than 25 years in the field thinks about that with you!
Feb 05 • 2 min read
Frozen, but functioning
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Hey,
I hope you've had a good start to 2025. Things here have been... wintery. We're deep into actual Swedish winter now — snow everywhere, which sounds lovely until you add 20 m/s winds. I don't think I've ever longed for morning coffee on the porch in the sun more than I do right now. What I've been up to I've had some time off since leaving Summer Health. At first, it felt a little disorienting — designers without a clear path forward tend to get restless. But I came across this post from Reggie James about embracing "the off season," and it resonated. He makes the point that vacations are like ice baths — the shock is good, but you know you're going back to work soon. A real off-season is different. It's intentional. It's where you figure out what you actually want to chase next. I don't think I've fully had that luxury, but I've had enough of it to appreciate the space. And like most designers with a little too much free time, I've been tinkering. Specifically, I've spent way too much time setting up OpenClaw — a tool that lets you build your own AI agent to automate tasks across different apps. My bot's name is Ellis. He named himself. I can't remember the last time I experienced technology that swings me so wildly between "this is the future!" and "this is so stupid, why doesn't it understand anything?" Back and forth. Multiple times per day. The way I see my AI setup going forward:
We'll see how long that lasts. The times we live in Speaking of Claude — here's something that still blows my mind. I've been a Harvest customer for about 10 years. It's fine. It does time tracking and invoicing. But in less than two days, I built my own tool with Claude that does exactly what I need. Not more, not less. And it's completely free. Now, Harvest is only $11/month — it's not like I'm saving a fortune. But that's almost what makes it more interesting. The cost isn't the point. The point is that for the first time, I have software that's actually tailored to how I work. No features I'll never use. No settings I have to ignore. Just... exactly what I need. That's incredibly rare with software today. And it makes me wonder — is this where we're heading? A future where we don't pick from a menu of SaaS tools and try to make them fit, but instead build hyper-personalized services for ourselves? I don't know. But it feels like something is shifting. A little client work I've also done some advisory work for Little Plains — helping the team get unblocked on some product design decisions. Funny enough, they were the last client I worked with before I joined Summer Health, so it felt like a nice full-circle moment to restart my consulting practice with them. Next week I'm starting a new project, so things should feel a bit more normal again. Whatever that means. One more thing If you're a designer or product leader feeling stuck — on career direction, a tricky project, or just how to think about your work — I'm doing coaching sessions. No frameworks or corporate nonsense, just honest conversations. Hit reply if that sounds useful. Talk soon, Anton Five things |
Sharing the insights I’ve uncovered about design and strategy is a not-so-secret passion of mine. The design industry is constantly changing, growing, and redefining itself and I’d love to share what my more than 25 years in the field thinks about that with you!