Sebastiaan de With
Designer and co-founder of Lux, makers of Halide, Spectre and Kino; formerly a designer at Apple.
Sebastiaan de With did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
-
Skeuomorphism never meant gloss and gradients; it meant easing users from what they were used to into what things had become.
It actually means that to make it easier for users to transition from something they were used to — in this case, phones typically being slabs with a grid of buttons on them — to what things had become — phones were all-screen, so they could show any kind of button or interface imaginable.
lux.cameraSaid 3 Jun 2025This on korrents
-
The most important thing a designer can do to make new technology usable is to simplify, and sometimes fewer features make a better product.
The most important thing you can do as a designer to make great new technology usable is to simplify.
lux.cameraSaid 11 Apr 2019This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 6 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Skeuomorphism never meant gloss and gradients; it meant easing users from what they were used to into what things had become.
It actually means that to make it easier for users to transition from something they were used to — in this case, phones typically being slabs with a grid of buttons on them — to what things had become — phones were all-screen, so they could show any kind of button or interface imaginable.
Physicality: the new age of UI Said 3 Jun 2025
Interfaces are returning to skeuomorphism, but as behaviour rather than lacquer: clear, graphic elements that act like materials from the real world.
We’ve come back, in a sense, to skeuomorphic interfaces — but this time not with a lacquer resembling a material. Instead, the interface is clear, graphic and behaves like things we know from the real world, or might exist in the world. This is what the new skeuomorphism is. It, too, is physicality.
Physicality: the new age of UI Said 3 Jun 2025
Opaque, inert, obstructive interface elements will become as niche as the full-screen command line once interfaces are infused with dynamic materials.
Opaque, inert and obstructive elements might occupy the same place as full-screen command line interfaces — a powerful niche UI that was a marker in history, passed on by the windowed environment of the multi-tasking, graphical user interface revolution.
Physicality: the new age of UI Said 3 Jun 2025
Show 3 more
The most important thing a designer can do to make new technology usable is to simplify, and sometimes fewer features make a better product.
The most important thing you can do as a designer to make great new technology usable is to simplify.
A Spectre Retrospective – Part 2: Design Said 11 Apr 2019
Given a complicated premise, the best thing a designer can do is stick to a conventional design and let the features surprise and delight.
But given the already complicated premise of long exposure photography, the best possible thing we could do — and as a designer this is hard to admit — was to stick to a fairly conventional design and let the actual features surprise and delight.
A Spectre Retrospective – Part 2: Design Said 11 Apr 2019
You know a design is great when it disappears: a superb typeface, good signage or a well-designed door handle is never noticed, only the absence of frustration.
When you come across an article set in a superb typeface for reading, some excellent airport signage or a well designed door handle, you don’t think about it or even notice it. If anything you might just notice being happier, or simply not frustrated. That’s how you know a design is great: it disappears.
A Spectre Retrospective – Part 2: Design Said 11 Apr 2019
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.