Dearest internet friends,

We finally launched the new Poolsuite website & music apps last week (click here if you missed it). Thanks so much to everyone who installed, tweeted, storied, DM'd, emailed - it's incredibly humbling to know how much love there is out there for the stuff we put our small team's hearts and souls into. Things are still a lil buggy but we'll smooth it all out in the coming weeks. If anyone has the time, an App Store review goes a really long way to help us get discovered by new listeners.

Amidst the launch I noticed a theme of questions which roughly translated to "how did you come up with the idea to build something that looks like this?". And I believe the answer to that is that I've spent many years finding out what my 'taste' is, then unapologetically going all-in on those personal preferences, regardless of whatever happens to be on-trend at the time. And everyone on our design team has done the same, but with their own personal preferences. Poolsuite then becomes this beautiful and unique blend of the combined tastes of our team. I believe the way to find and develop that taste (if you haven't already) is through the art of intentional curation - the subject of this week's newsletter.

Much love,
Marty

The art of intentional curation

I read this thing a while ago that said we’re exposed to more information in 24 hours than someone 100 years ago would have been exposed to in their entire lives. I've no idea if those numbers are accurate, but what I do know is that more intentional scrolling and curation helps. 

And that’s because curation turns the overwhelming void of images & information into an abundance of references. We have so much opportunity to choose, and I think that’s a wonderful privilege.

Curation builds taste

If we don’t actively decide what we read, see or listen to, it’s decided for us. And we'll be served general slop by an algorithm that's controlled by people with extremely skewed values and ideas about what is best for us to see (hint: they want us to see ads - they want us to buy stuff). We’re pulled along by the tides of trends, letting brands and other people define our tastes instead of ourselves. But personal taste is one of our most valuable assets. When we take time to curate intentionally, we build and nurture that taste over time, in ways that even the most intelligent algorithm never could. Like all good things, curation takes patience. You should never settle for what’s served to you, and instead, put in the time and effort to find things that deeply connect with your soul. That’s what builds personal taste. 

Bucketing your discoveries

One of the most important parts of this process is how you group things together. I'll share some tools you can use for discovering & saving in the members-only section below. I try to be as specific as possible in how I group things. I do this based on themes rather than by category - so instead of separate buckets like Country Homes and Vintage Food Labels, I might create something like Nonna’s Home, Rural Tuscany, then, over the course of weeks or months, add anything that feels even loosely related to that theme. And slowly but surely, a world starts to come to life.

Now, when you're searching for references, you're thinking about what might fit into or expand this world - not just how to find more vintage matchboxes (which are likely disconnected in aesthetic and theme). The kinds of things that go into that bucket could be a photo of the interior of a perfect rural B&B in Italy, a vintage wine label you saw in your local deli, a Spotify playlist of old Italian music, an old Campari ad from a ’70s Playboy magazine, etc.

Ideally, your collections should include both digital and physical items.

Curation is a muscle

They say to be funny, you have to train your brain to see connections where others usually won’t. Like the way you’d train a muscle. It’s the same with curation.

The more you curate into niche buckets daily, the more you start to notice the connections between seemingly unrelated things. That's where the magic lies. This makes you dramatically more creative, and you'll find yourself subconsciously putting things together in ways you hadn't considered before.

The true gems are offline

It’s easy to think of intentional curation as sitting down at your computer and purposefully searching (which it can be at times), or finding the right Instagram account to follow, or stumbling upon a Pinterest board filled with stuff you like. But I've come to learn that all my greatest discoveries have been found offline.

It might take a whole weekend of weaving through antique shops, vintage bookshops, concept stores, flea markets, museums, and galleries to find a single gem - but when you finally stumble upon that absolute banger 10/10 reference that feels deeply you, it all suddenly feels worthwhile. That might come in the form of an old book cover with the perfect font & sun-bleached colour palette, a Cuban cigar tin, a postcard from Ibiza sent in '91, or a glorious Campari ad you found in the middle of a '70s Playboy magazine.

You can also collect less tangible things like lists of the people you love to spend time with and their characteristics, the places you visit and what you love about them, or your favourite little daily rituals. Sometimes when I'm thinking about the correct tone of voice for a project, I think of a person who feels like the best representation of the project's personality, so I can think about how they'd speak about said project. That works for visual inspiration too; what colours do they wear? How might they style the interior of their home?

The more you collect - from objects to moments to images - the more personal your references become. Over time, you’re not just building taste, you’re building a kind of lens. A lens through which you start to see the world, spot connections, make decisions, and shape ideas. One that gives your work that unexplainable feeling of having soul. And that kind of thing doesn’t come from scrolling, it comes from living.

Hot Hyperlinks

☼ The pink exterior. The kidney shaped pool. The sea foam green tile. I hope whoever moves into this mid-century home in LA doesn’t change a damn thing.  

☼ I found this article from 2022 about good vs bad quests (or goals). And while I don’t 100% agree with the idea of a “bad quest” there are some great points about choosing goals that don’t just improve your life, but also the lives of those around you.

☼ Look at this vintage Bronco in ‘Medium Goldenrod yellow’ that recently sold for $60,000. It was previously owned by Richard Nixon.

☼ David Lynch’s worldy possessions are going up for auction on June 18th, and I don’t know what’s better - the cameras, the furniture or the collection of David Lynch caps.

☼ This group of incredibly talented designers created a biodegradable splint, so anyone can help an injured bird recover. They also designed this eco-home for butterflies made from egg shells.

Hotter Hyperlinks

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