I'm Justin Barber, a designer born and raised in Tokyo, Japan.
I currently lead design at Applied Intuition, a Silicon Valley startup in the autonomous vehicle space. Before that I was at Google.
In the summer of 2019 I launched Bonsai, a personal effort to publish writing and design projects that "cultivate depth and beauty." You can subscribe to my newsletter on life, culture, and design below:
The Prophecy and Artistic Potential of TikTok Star Bella Poarch
I refuse to download TikTok. Mostly because it feels like TikTok is always trying to download me, and that's kind of scary even though everyone says I'll love it. I probably will, which is why I can't afford the temptation of yet another endless stream of content just a tap
Tesla's Cybertruck: A Futuristic Design Sabotaged by Hypermasculinity
A few weeks before Tesla’s Cybertruck reveal in November 2019, Elon Musk teased the vehicle’s radical design on Twitter: “Cybertruck doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen bouncing around the Internet. It’s closer to an armored personnel carrier from the future.”At the time I rolled
Justin's "Bonsai" Newsletter
A personal newsletter on life, culture, and design.