31 JAN 2026
David's approach: common compute wants outlier design
for Common Compute, David pushed beyond a normal SaaS landing page into an interactive world-building surface.
Common Compute is the political and aesthetic frame for shared access to compute and intelligence. it is not meant to look like a standard startup page with cards and generic gradients.
in Codex history, David asked for a design direction that felt non-linear and strange: text made of moving ASCII characters, a new world being traced in motion, and an experience that feels like a manifesto rather than a landing page.
if you were head of design at common compute and you were told to make this site extremely non-linear and very much an outlier in terms of approach to design, what would you do?
the taste signal is that design should carry the politics of the project, not just decorate it.