On creating beautiful things

As humans, we're surrounded by objects. We pay very little attention to the vast majority of them but they're there, they're all around us. Dieter Rams famously said that "Good design is as little design as possible" and he's not wrong. Good design is design that does its job without getting in your way. But good design can—and sometimes should—also stand out because good design is the embodiment of passion, of caring for a craft, of loving the process.

And that's precisely why I love everything Craig Mod does. I think I first stumbled on his work almost a decade ago at this point and what really caught my attention was the love for the process. From the newsletters to the essays to the books, everything is deliberate and you can just see that he just cares. The feeling I get is that there's almost a sense of responsibility when putting something out into the world and that's something I can relate to.

Back in late 2016 I backed the Koya Bound on Kickstarter and got my signed and numbered (513) copy.

I loved it. I still love it. I have to admit that what Craig makes lives at the intersection of way too many things I personally love and am passionate about: photography, nature, Japan and its culture, and walks. I'm also a sucker for signed books and limited editions which is why in 2020 I got my copy—number 429—of Kissa by Kissa.

Kissa is, by far, one of my favorite books. And when I say book I mean both in terms of content and in terms of the actual book. The cover, the materials, the print, the typeface, the size, the layout. I love everything about the book and I am so happy I got my first edition.

Those two books, and everything else Craig does, are the reasons why it took me literally 1 minute from receiving the email to hitting the buy button and get a signed copy of his new book, Things Become Other Things.

In Craig's words:

“Things Become Other Things (TBOT)” is a book chronicling a decade of walking central Japan's Kii Peninsula and its Kumano Kodō paths. I’ve walked thousands of kilometers and talked with hundreds of people. This is a book about farmers and fishermen and kissa owners and adopted inn proprietors, about okonomiyaki ladies, whispering priests, and foul-mouthed little kids. It's about the loss of industry — lumber, fishing — and what it does to a place. It's about depopulation and aging populations. It's a reflection on why I emigrated to Japan some 23 years ago. And it's a remembrance of the life of one lost friend.

Mostly, it's a book celebrating grace, and documents my searching for archetypes in landscapes and people — archetypes for how grace can and should infuse everything, even things coming to an end. Even things becoming other things.

I'm aware it's probably silly, but I want more beautiful objects in this world. Objects made with love, with care. So thank you Craig for making these books and for caring so much about what you do.