Top all-time · #1410
Arun Venkatesan
Personal blog · arun.is/blog · on HN as ddrmaxgt37designculture
Arun Venkatesan's personal blog at arun.is covers design and culture. Since 2017, 50 different Hacker News readers have linked it 92 times, most often “The secret formula for Apple's rounded corners”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-25, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Arun Venkatesan's blog for design and technology writing, including pieces on Apple's rounded corners, custom typefaces, and an early review of the Daylight tablet.
- Recommended for · 5 comments
- Described as insightful on design, a visually-rich blog on how design and technology shape our lives, a great article on custom typefaces, and simple yet elegan
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
My name is Arun Venkatesan. This site is dedicated to my thoughts and observations about design.
Most-linked posts?
- The secret formula for Apple's rounded corners5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-10-12
- Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-11-09
- The untold history of macOS System Preferences3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-17
- Ten Year Challenge: How Popular Websites Have Changed3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-01-23
- History of the world time face for Apple Watch3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-04
- Rediscovering Apple's 1987 Identity Guidelines2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-05-29
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-11
- /blog/daylight-tablet/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-04-26
- Japan's Invisible Electric Wall2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-09
- The Art of the Desk Setup2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-24
What Hacker News says?
I'm probably echoing a lot of people here but: - Dan Luu [1] and for design and insights in that discipline: - Arun Venkatesan [2] I first saw Dan Luu's list of programming books ( https://danluu.com/programming-books/ ) when researching CLRS during my sophomore year of high school. This list and his insights on pure CS are really enjoyable to read and pique my interest. Also, his post on latency [4] secured the ide…
Comment linking /blog/smart-speaker/
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Why are tech companies making custom typefaces? as a story · 262 points
HN discussionhttps://arun.is
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Share your personal site”Submitted Two perspectives on a designer who Steve Jobs could not hire as a story · 170 points
HN discussionhttps://c82.net/ a designers website with impressive visualizations and artwork https://fabiensanglard.net/ a personal website with interesting side projects and lots of technical details https://paulstamatiou.com/ photography, technology and design with in-depth articles and detailed travel photosets https://www.arun.is/ a visually-rich blog that dives deep into how design and technology shape our lives https://cie…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?”Submitted The art of the desk setup (2021) as a story · 128 points
HN discussionhttps://c82.net/ https://fabiensanglard.net/ https://paulstamatiou.com/ https://www.arun.is/ https://ciechanow.ski/ https://simone.computer/ https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?”Submitted Shanghai's Automotive Metamorphosis as a story · 82 points
HN discussionBecause they're not circular arcs with a constant radius. They're "squircles". Apple uses those all over the place. https://arun.is/blog/apple-rounded-corners/ In my opinion it only makes sense for reflective surfaces (e.g. cars) to have nicely flowing reflections, while most of Apple's products have a matte finish. In 2D UI elements it most definitely makes no sense. But some designer must have been a big fan of th…
Comment linking /blog/apple-rounded-corners/
on “Apple's Dimensional Drawings”Submitted The tale of two Shanghais as a story · 81 points
HN discussionI wrote about this concept recently. Secondhand objects can be good purchases! https://arun.is/blog/pinned-value-goods/
Comment linking /blog/pinned-value-goods/
on “The lamps in my house”Submitted My DIY modular charging station as a story · 35 points
HN discussionThe article contains an image [1] showing several tech-company-funded fonts side-by-side. The fonts have some differences, but I'd have to agree with you the changes are so subtle it's hard to believe they resulted from an attempt to make a _radically_ new typeface. [1] https://www.arun.is/blog/custom-typefaces/unique_typefaces_m...
Comment linking /blog/custom-typefaces/unique_typefaces_mobile.jpg
on “Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?”Submitted The Creative Power of Constraints as a story · 34 points
HN discussionGreat article arguing why many large companies do this - https://www.arun.is/blog/custom-typefaces/
Comment linking /blog/custom-typefaces/
on “Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)”Submitted The Design of Apple's Credit Card as a story · 32 points
HN discussion> The problem is licensing... It's led to larger tech companies rolling their own, which often means just taking something already out there and changing a few corners slightly and calling it a new work. https://www.arun.is/blog/custom-typefaces/
Comment linking /blog/custom-typefaces/
on “Get the Font”Submitted Does gear matter? as a story · 30 points
HN discussionIt's the cost. Licensing of fonts can be quite expensive. For example, if you are a big multinational and you get a site license for a font for marketing, you're looking at a couple million a year minimum. On the other side, if you hire a firm to design a font, it's a one time payment of a couple hundred thousand, plus you own the rights in perpetuity. It makes a lot of sense to just take the time and make a font th…
Comment linking /blog/custom-typefaces/
on “IBM Plex Typeface (2018)”Submitted The untold history of macOS System Preferences (2020) as a story · 19 points
HN discussionA couple of reviews: - https://om.co/2024/05/18/daylight-tablet/ - https://arun.is/blog/daylight-tablet/
Comment linking /blog/daylight-tablet/
on “Daylight eInk Computer”Submitted The iconic watches that inspired Apple Watch faces as a story · 8 points
HN discussionDespite the common confusion, it's not e-ink but rather a reflective LCD (rLCD) screen. It's the same principle as the original Game Boy where instead of using a backlight, the LCD reflects light instead. There's an early review available here for anyone interested: https://arun.is/blog/daylight-tablet/
Comment linking /blog/daylight-tablet/
on “DayLight Computer”Submitted The secret formula for Apple's rounded corners as a story · 5 points
HN discussion> I already knew about the whole “mathematically perfect corners” thing Apple does This https://arun.is/blog/apple-rounded-corners ?
Comment linking /blog/apple-rounded-corners
on “Show HN: Apple-like smooth corners for Tailwind CSS”Submitted The secret formula for Apple's rounded corners (2023) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionTasteful: https://colly.com/ Artsy: https://anhvn.com/ Simple yet elegant: https://www.lkhrs.com/ and https://arun.is/blog/ Maximalist: https://henry.codes/ and https://garden.bradwoods.io/ and https://blog.maximeheckel.com/ Old-school / indie web: https://ribo.zone/ Text mode / ASCII art: https://adelfaure.net/ Typography: http://davidcole.me/ and https://www.petemillspaugh.com/ I have more. You can keep rolling th…
Comment linking /blog/
on “Ask HN: Most beautiful personal blog UI you have ever seen?”Submitted Design Ah (デザインあ) · learning the fun of design as a story · 4 points
HN discussionhttps://zed.dev/blog (somewhat quirkier, sidebars) https://tailscale.com/blog (overall clean) https://arun.is/blog (sidebar, colors) https://www.vitsoe.com/us/voice (general feel) https://github.com/TryGhost/Headline (interesting article header, open source)
Comment linking /blog
on “Ask HN: Favorite text heavy blogs the are a joy to read”Submitted When Leica Met Apple as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
