Hello, team —
A reminder: you subscribed to this newsletter written by me, Naz Hamid, because you were interested in what I am building here and missives around product design. I’d suggest you can always unsubscribe below, but you may not need to… read below for more.
Well, that was 2020. And I had plans to launch Preflight back in Q1. 2020 turned that on its head, though not in the negative. Space was created, for better and worse, to focus on other important things, and I found myself in Q4 working harder and more than I have in a while. Making up for some kind of “lost” time.
With 2020 came a clarity. Less is more. Simplicity is key.
And so, Preflight, as a name and umbrella is being let go. The services and tenets of the endeavor will not be abandoned: they’ll just be moved over and evolved under Weightshift. I ran into a bit of this issue with brand and naming when I first left VSCO in 2018 and was not considering using Weightshift as a name, and using Studio 28 as a name.
As I said then:
Don’t call it a comeback, redux, for real. I know the last time we spoke, I soft announced Studio 28. I had a lot of questions at the time and prior, about why. I reasoned it with friends and they all empathetically agreed. Except one or two. At the time, I was very much about starting everything fresh and tearing down everything that had come before. A visceral reaction. But as the weeks and months have passed, and my identity and path have settled and resolved, I came to realize that I had put 17 years worth of brand equity into Weightshift. My social accounts are all named that and for what it’s worth, my identity and that name are intertwined. In addition, it’s easy to tear things down and start fresh. It’s harder to maintain something, change and evolve it over time, and to not get pigeonholed. So, in that vein, and in feeling comfortable in my own skin, Weightshift is back. Different and evolved, but back. Studio 28, we hardly knew ya. Thanks for all the gifts.
So, in that same spirit, Preflight, we hardly knew ya. But the offering will appear under Weightshift.
This newsletter will cease, and this is the last one. If you like, Weightshifting, my longer running newsletter, with plans to spin that back up regularly in 2021, is open for you to subscribe to. It’s more wide-ranging, and embraces more of a personal nature, but design is always looped in. It’s a more well-rounded scope of topics, and more freedom for me to connect different dots and areas of interest together.
Weightshifting
Notes from the fields of design, culture, and travel by San Francisco-based designer Naz Hamid.
If it’s any enticement, I’ll be sneak peeking my new personal site on that list.
Till then, thanks for following along, and the conversations I’ve had with some of you. It’s been a small and worthy experiment.
Hope to see you at Weightshifting, but as always, there’s Twitter, and Instagram.
Much thanks and wishing you the best, Naz.