By Landesberg Design | March 9, 2026

Good design is often the result of good reading. Here's our latest offering of insight, info, and intrigue. Indulge.

See You Tomorrow

by Brian Bronaugh, Senior Advisor/Owner

Illustration Credit: Getty Images

Closed doors have always made me uncomfortable. It started early. My mother—an exhausted single parent—would invariably have to leave my bedroom door open at night as a concession in the nightly negotiation over my incredibly unfair bedtime. This had little to do with a fear of the dark. I simply didn’t want to miss anything. I wanted to see what was happening beyond the four walls and roof that enclosed me, and I was certain everything important was happening out there.

Each night, I also made her promise that I would “see her tomorrow.” I was convinced she was hiding from me the fact that I was dying from the same terminal disease I had just learned about on Marcus Welby, M.D. or some other horrifying 1960s medical drama (I was banned from that programming by about third grade). To complicate matters, my younger sister insisted that she and my mother would one night move away without telling me. With an open door and vigilant eyes, I could prevent such shenanigans.

Academically, closed classroom doors became hostile gatekeepers, boxing me in while tyrannical wardens presided over the suffocating confinements of readin’, writin’, and ’rithmetic. Recess, notably, had no doors.

Professionally speaking—as nearly any manager can attest—when a colleague or employee enters your office and closes the door, nine times out of ten the ensuing conversation will not be pleasant. No one closes a door for good news. Good news is shared; bad news is delivered behind a shut door.

When the conference room door swung closed for “the meeting,” my shoulders would sag imperceptibly. Escape was impossible. On the rare occasions the door remained open, the meeting felt lighter—a sliver of light at the end of the PowerPoint tunnel.

Clearly, my aversion to literal closed doors might warrant therapeutic examination. I recognize that many of the professional experiences above belong to a pre-COVID world. We don’t gather like we once did—despite corporate mandates urging us back. Our closed-door boxes have given way to Zoom boxes on screens.

For all its supposed efficiency, practicality, and delightful lack of 
physical doors, Zoom, Teams, and their likes are invariably awkward. Meetings don’t so much end as sputter out—participants unsure when 
it’s their turn to speak or when to click “Leave” before disappearing abruptly into the ether. The post-COVID disruption of physically seeing the same people consistently has reminded me that the phrase I once insisted my mother use at bedtime has slowly become yet another casualty of human interaction.

“See you tomorrow.” And its Friday companion, “See you Monday.” These were validations of our collective routines. I can still breezily intone, “Have a good weekend” in a Friday email or virtual meeting, but there’s no commitment in that phrase the way there was in the “see yous.” They implied stability—the comfort of knowing the rhthym would continue, that not much would change. We were tethered to one another.



“See you later” is a distant cousin, reserved for those who cross our orbit only occasionally. It carries an indeterminate sense of time. “Later” is non-specific. “Tomorrow” and “Monday” are not.

“See you tomorrow”—for me, anyway—was one of the quiet glues of working life. It said, I’ll be here, and so will you. This is our place. We have work to do together.

Of course, the only constant is change. I don’t mean this as another harangue about the tremors of the past four or five years. Many people have worked virtually for decades, and we’ll adapt. Recently, The Atlantic published a thoughtful article about the scope, pace, and impact artificial intelligence will have on our collective future. As I read it, I found myself wondering whether we are—consciously or unconsciously—making it easier for this onslaught by no longer employing “see you tomorrow.”

Some organizations are trying to mandate it back into existence and I don’t believe that’s a healthy answer. Make it so your folks want to come back on a more regular basis. Physical gathering at work needs to employ more social influences. This will be decried by the efficiency and productivity czars, but these social connections will, I believe, lead to a better long-term partnership for us humans and our technology.

Well—see you sometime.

The Pittsburgh Foundation

Overview. The Pittsburgh Foundation (TPF) operates at the intersection of philanthropy, civic leadership, and community storytelling. This digital annual report was developed to communicate the scale and impact of the organization’s work while making the information more accessible to donors, nonprofit partners, and the public.



The site organizes highlights from throughout the year—drawing on previously published stories, program updates, and reported outcomes—
to show how the Foundation’s investments support communities across 
the region.

Approach. In collaboration with the TPF team, content was organized into thematic sections that reflect the Foundation’s major areas of work. These sections combine previously reported stories, photography, and key metrics to provide a clear view of the initiatives, partnerships, and programs that defined the year.

The structure allows readers to easily move between program highlights, community impact, and data—making it simple to understand both the scope of the Foundation’s work and the results it helped achieve.

Outcome. The result is a digital annual report that functions as both a record of the year and a clear overview of the Foundation’s impact across the region.

The digital format allows the Foundation to present its work with greater clarity, emotional resonance, and accessibility—extending the reach of its story far beyond the traditional printed report. See the report here and learn about the great work TPF has been doing in the Pittsburgh community.

1. The Taylor Swift of Valentine's Day

Photo Credit: Mount Holyoke College

Valentine’s Day has long-held European roots, but in the United States it was effectively founded by one entrepreneur: Esther Howland.

In the early 1840s, Americans exchanged mostly handmade valentines—simple notes, often playful or sentimental. The holiday existed, but it was modest and inconsistent. That changed when Howland, the daughter of a Worcester, Massachusetts bookseller and stationer, received an elaborate English valentine adorned with lace paper, embossed decorations, and delicate romantic imagery. Within this sentimental contrivance, she saw 
an opportunity.

Howland began importing fine paper lace and decorative elements from England and designing similar cards herself. But what truly distinguished her was not just artistic taste—it was business acumen. She created one of the first assembly-style production systems run by women in the United States, organizing local workers to help cut, paste, assemble, and package the ornate cards. Each piece was carefully layered and embellished, creating a sense of luxury and sentimentality that Americans had not previously experienced at that scale.

By the 1850s, Howland’s company was producing thousands of cards a year, earning her well over $100,000 annually (about $3 million in today’s dollars) and she was cemented as the “Mother of the American Valentine.”



The cards themselves also established a cultural shift. Howland’s efforts transformed Valentine’s Day from a loosely observed custom into a reliable annual ritual. Her designs standardized the visual language of romance—and established the expectation that affection might be validated through purchases which came to symbolize your undying love.

Candy and card makers, florists, and overpriced restaurants all thank 
you, Esther.

2. Bye-Bye, Billable Hour

Josh Tyrangiel’s recent Atlantic piece on America’s lack of a plan for AI-driven job disruption—accompanied by Stephan Dybus’s sharp illustrations—prompted an experiment: we asked AI what it “felt” about the article. After feeding it into the digital chasm, we posed it the question.



“Its” response, in part (and we’re quoting here…):

“This is persuasive on governance but less convincing on the leap from technology to mass unemployment. The core insight is that ‘counting’ builds civic capacity—we need better labor data to track AI’s real impact. I’m skeptical of a near-term job ‘asteroid,’ since AI automates tasks more than entire jobs, and organizational friction can slow displacement. The real variable is speed: gradual adoption allows adjustment, while rapid change—especially in entry-level roles—could damage career ladders and institutional trust even if overall unemployment looks stable.”

Photo Credit: Getty Images

We then asked it to apply a design-industry lens (again, a direct quote…):

“The design/communications field won’t be wiped out. But it will bifurcate. One tier becomes commoditized content production. The other becomes high-trust narrative strategy. The people who move upward deliberately will thrive. The ones who cling to the old billable-hours-for-artifacts model will feel squeezed.”

Three quick points. First, love that it could “step back.” Second, bifurcation sounds painful. And third—most important—that final sentence exposes something the design industry has long wrestled with: the attachment to the billable hour.



If AI accelerates production and compresses the value of artifacts, then firms—and their clients—must shift toward value-based models. Strategy, translation, editing, curation, and institutional judgment will matter more than hours logged. If AI adoption unfolds gradually enough to allow workforce adjustment through attrition, redeployment, and new roles, the real opportunity may not just be technological—it may be cultural: shedding a manufacturing-era mindset in favor of a model built around human insight and narrative stewardship.

3. Thin Mints Rule

Photo Credit: Girl Scouts

Creative Director Tim Madle becomes everyone’s favorite colleague this time of year—not because of his boyish charm, incomparable mentorship, or exquisite design instincts (all of which we adore), but because he brings his daughter’s Girl Scout cookie link to the office. Gone is the humble paper order sheet; in its place, a dangerously efficient digital app that makes acquiring industrial quantities of sugar feel frictionless.

Photo Credit: Girl Scouts

All of which leads to the real point: Thin Mints are the rock stars of the cookie world. These crisp chocolate wafers with minty cool authority sell more than 50 million boxes annually, making them the undisputed best-selling Girl Scout flavor. They may not rival the year-round global dominance of Oreos or Chips Ahoy, but consider this: Thin Mints are available only a few fleeting months each year. Their scarcity is part of the magic. Seasonal. Elusive. Slightly tyrannical.

The Girl Scout cookie tradition dates back to 1917, when the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma baked and sold cookies in their school cafeteria. By the 1920s, girls nationwide were selling homemade treats door-to-door. In 1936, Girl Scouts began licensing commercial bakers, standardizing production and expanding reach—even surviving a World War II sugar-rationing pause. Today, two national bakers produce the cookies, resulting in a few regional name variations but enduring devotion.



Thin Mints themselves debuted in 1939 as “Cooky-Mints.” The name wandered—“Chocolate Mint,” “Thin Mint,” “Cookie Mint,” back again—before settling, decisively, on the plural “Thin Mints.” Which is a genius name. They’re thin. You should indulge—you work hard. Like Lay’s Potato Chips, you can’t eat just one.

Penna Players

Pittsburgh, PA

Photo Credit: Penna Players

Jazz may be the design equivalent of the music world—built on improvisation, color, mood, and a kind of aural hierarchy that mirrors what we do as designers: orchestrating a distinct voice for a brand or publication. For that reason, our first musical foray for LD’s Artist of the Month features the Penna Players, a dynamic Pittsburgh-based traditional jazz quintet celebrated for their vibrant blend of classic jazz, swing, and early-century blues.

The ensemble includes Pat Hodge (guitar and vocals), Nathan Vargo (violin), Dave Shepherd (upright bass), Lenni Green (clarinet), and Jason Borisoff (guitar). Drawing on vintage American and European influences—from Louis Armstrong and George Gershwin to Django Reinhardt—the Penna Players carry forward a rich tradition while contributing to Pittsburgh’s storied jazz legacy shaped by icons such as Art Blakey, Mary Lou Williams, Ahmad Jamal, Billy Strayhorn, and many others.

Catch them live on Thursday, May 14 at 7:30 PM as part of the Calliope Concert Series at The Roots Cellar in Pittsburgh—an intimate setting perfectly suited for an evening of timeless music that will delight devoted swing-era fans and newcomers alike.