The other day, I was thinking about how mycelium grows beneath the surface and connects it all.

And then I started thinking about how most of the time, we don’t see all the work that is put together in everything around us in order for it to exist.

Think about AI and all the chips, data centres, cooling systems, electricity, engineers, researchers, years of work, money, decisions, problems that had to be solved… All so we can ask ChatGPT the best way to respond to an email from our annoying boss.

Or all the effort, experience, knowledge and capital that goes into setting up an Italian restaurant. And I’m not just talking about the restaurant itself, but all the little things behind it. We see the restaurant. The tables, the menu, the food, the little sign outside.

But before any of that, there was an idea.

Maybe someone talked about it with their spouse. Maybe they got really excited about it. Maybe they had absolutely no idea where to start.

And then they decided to actually do it.

There are SO many steps that sometimes we just take for granted. It’s about everything that happens between the idea and the outcome.

  • The conversations.
  • The decisions.
  • The uncomfortable beginnings.
  • The people who help along the way.
  • The consistency.
  • The mistakes.
  • The tiny steps that don’t seem important at the time.
  • The work nobody sees.

The other day, I read a text that said:

“I manifested, but I also did the fucking job.”

Sooo accurate!

There’s so much that connects everything in order for things to grow and evolve.

In my personal experience, launching this website… OMG.

The time invested. Trying to be perfect in every way. Making decisions. Procrastinating. Talking to friends about how I should improve my SEO to bring in organic clients. Honestly, so many things.

Thinking about what I want to say, how I want to present myself, what kind of clients I want to work with… And then realizing that maybe I am overthinking it again.

It’s just a website, right?

And then I go back to mushrooms.

They remind me that all those small steps are the foundation for something greater. The connections with people. The consistency. The work. The unseen.

Sometimes you’re just doing a bunch of tiny things and you don’t really know where they’re going.

  • You’re making the website.
  • You’re sending the email.
  • You’re having the conversation.
  • You’re trying something.
  • You’re meeting someone.
  • You’re changing your mind.
  • You’re trying again.

And then eventually, something starts to take shape.

And I think businesses are a little like that too. We see the restaurant. The website. The brand. The finished product. But we don’t always see everything underneath it. The idea. The people behind it. The decisions. The work. The relationships. The things that had to happen for it to exist.

And this is probably why I like design so much. Because I’m interested in those connections.

Not just what should this look like? But what is behind it? What is it trying to communicate? How does everything connect? I believe meaningful design works a little like mycelium. What you see on the surface is only part of the story. Beneath it is a network of choices, relationships, ideas, and work that gives a brand its strength.

And maybe that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

  • The unseen work.
  • The tiny steps.
  • The connections.
  • The fucking job.

If you’re building something of your own and any of this resonates with you, maybe we’d make a good team.

And maybe that’s where we start.