Blogroll
Here are some blogs and independent news outlets I like to read. You can click the RSS icon next to each to subscribe using your newsreader, or import all of them at once by downloading and importing this convenient .opml file. If you like, you can receive updates to this list via RSS.
Climate Change#
Collectives / Compilations#
Bear Blog Discover
ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Bear is a privacy-first, no-nonsense, super-fast blogging platform. Bear's discovery feed lists trending articles from the Bear blogosphere.
Freethought Blogs
Freethoughtblogs is an open platform for freethought writers. We are skeptics and critics of dogma and authoritarianism, and in addition, we recognize that the nonexistence of deities entails a greater commitment to human values, and in particular, an appreciation of human diversity and equality. We are for feminism, against racism, for diversity, against inequity. Our network of blogs is designed to encourage independent thinking and individual autonomy — freethoughtblogs.com is a vehicle for giving vocal secularists a venue for discussion of their values and interests.
Hundred Rabbits
Hundred Rabbits is an artist collective that documents low-tech solutions with the hope of building a more resilient future. We live and work aboard a 10 m sailboat named Pino in remote parts of the world to learn more about how technology degrades beyond the shores of the western world.
Comics#
Graphic Rage with Aubrey Hirsch
I’m a writer, illustrator, and creator of feminist comics! If you’re an avid reader, you may have seen my work in Vox, TIME or The Washington Post. I also write a monthly comic for Roxane Gay’s newsletter, The Audacity. In this space, I do a little bit of everything, but you can expect to see a lot of comics about gender, justice, aging, and life as a woman in America.
Design#
Abduzeedo
Abduzeedo is a collective of individual writers sharing articles about design, photography, and UX. It was founded by Fabio Sasso in 2006 as a personal blog, later growing to become a digital publication with several writers from all over the world, working independently.
Alphabettes
Alphabettes.org is a showcase for work, commentary, and research on lettering, typography, and type design. Our loose network is here to support and promote the work of all women and nonbinary people in our fields.
Creative Review
Creative Review has been bringing the creative community together since 1980, first as a print magazine and now across more platforms than ever.
Design By Women
Founded by graphic designer Mary Hemingway in June 2020, Design by Women aims to showcase and celebrate women, gender expansive and gender non-conforming creatives currently working in the design industry and to inspire emerging under-represented creatives to pursue a career in design.
Friends of Type
Friends of Type features original typographic design and lettering – fresh visual content – practically every day.
Identity Designed
Identity Designed is a website and book series devoted to the design of visual identities.
It's Nice That
Our mission is to inspire the global creative community. We share stories, offer insights and bring people together to help them make more of their creativity.
Jamie Clarke Type
I’m an independent type designer and lettering artist based near Bristol, UK. I draw letters for clients worldwide and have almost three decades of experience as a designer and typographer.
Logo Design Love
Logo Design Love is a website and book devoted to logos, symbols, icons, and marks.
The Design Blog
The Design Blog is a carefully curated platform for design and creative inspiration featuring works of designers, studios, and creatives from around the world.
Toxel
Toxel.com is a daily design, inspiration and technology blog dedicated to showcasing the best creative products and designs from all over the world.
Visuelle
Graphic Design and everything in between. Curated by David Bennett Creative Director at opx.studio.
Food & Beverage#
A Tea Addict's Journal
This blog got started in 2006 on Xanga as an attempt to write down what I thought about the teas I was drinking. At that point I had been a serious tea drinker for at least six or seven years, but until then, I never really thought much about it. I thought that by writing down my thoughts, it would help me organize my ideas about tea, and in doing so, I hoped to reach an audience who were like minded tea drinkers. My hunch that there were a lot more tea drinkers out there in the West was right, and through this blog I have met quite a number of like-minded individuals, some of whom have become very good friends. I hope that, if nothing else, my musings here will help you find a better tea experience – life’s too short to be drinking bad tea.
Essence of Tea Blog
We are tea lovers - a couple, David Collen and Yingxi Chen, who shared a wish to make good teas available to fellow tea lovers around the world.
Sarah's Vegan Kitchen
Sarah has years of recipes including complex staples like vegan cultured butter.
Tea DB
TeaDB is a website and podcast started by friends and tea lovers James Schergen and Denny Chapin. James and Denny are business partners professionally, running websites in tea-unrelated industries (AllTreatment, TheraThink). We invite you to learn alongside us in our tea journeys!
General Interest#
Practical betterments
Practical Betterments is a collection of one-off actions that improve your life continuously — however marginally.
Public Domain Review
The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.
The Pudding
The Pudding is a digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays.
Webcurios
A regular(-ish) newsletterblogtypething all about stuff on the internet that its author finds interesting and thinks you might too.
Health#
ADDitude
The world’s most trusted resource for families and adults living with ADHD and related conditions, and for the professionals who work with them.
The Gauntlet
A newsletter covering the current science on, and commentary related to, the unmitigated spread of COVID.
Incense, Fragrance, and Perfumery#
Apothecary’s Garden Blog
Explore the world of natural aromatics, and the communities that bring them to us.
Ayala Moriel Parfums - SmellyBlog
Ayala Moriel Parfums is an independent artisan perfume house dedicated to the art of natural perfumery.
Dr. Incense
Traditional incense maker and founder of the Incense Culture Association of Singapore, and Nanyang Culture Academy.
Justine the Incenseur
I am Justine Crane, natural perfumer and incenseur. I created the course content at the Natural Perfume Academy online, and the owner/operator of the Scented Djinn Apothecary & Thurifercorum. I’m also half of the in-person teaching duo, The Rebel Perfumers, with my teaching partner, Cher Lynn of Essential Oil Apothecary. I’m using this space to write about everything natural perfume and incense related. There will be some shameless plugging of my businesses, as well as tons of information about NP and incense. Let’s do this.
Now Smell This
Now Smell This is a blog about perfume. We've been blogging since 2005. Up until about 2019, the blog was regularly updated and we posted lots of perfume reviews. Now, we do still have daily polls and new fragrance announcements, but it's less comprehensive than it was, and reviews are rare. Many pages (Perfume Houses, Perfumers, etc) are way out of date.
Olfactory Rescue Service
The ultimate retail incense resource providing incense writing and reviews.
Rauchfahne
Incense reviews and writing in German and English from incense maker, enthusiast, and industry insider Irene.
LGBTQ+#
Assigned Media
Mainstream coverage of transgender life is falling short, while transphobic propaganda on the right grows louder and more insistent every day. Assigned publishes factual, up to date, responsible coverage of trans issues, allowing trans people and our allies to separate the truth from the lies and build a response to anti-trans hate that achieves dignity and equality for trans people in the US and beyond.
Uncloseted Media
Uncloseted Media is a new Investigative media organization committed to providing you with objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism that examines America’s anti-LGBTQ ecosystem and elevates the voices of everyday American heroes.
Literature#
Moist Poetry Journal
Moist Poetry Journal was born at a poetry house party, where some poets got to talking about words that might cause an editor to immediately reject a poem. One of those words was “moist.” Now. There was a rejector and a defender of “moist” in the conversation, as there will always be, but it was decided that MOIST POETRY JOURNAL would be an ideal journal concept–a place for moist poems, for gendered and queer language, for language play that might not “be a good fit” for other journals.
News: International#
Bellingcat
Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open source research. (Thanks to werd.io for the recommendation.)
openDemocracy
High-quality journalism which challenges power, inspires change and builds leadership among groups underrepresented in the media. (Predominantly U.K. focused)
Rest of World
Rest of World is a nonprofit publication that challenges expectations about whose experiences with technology matter. We connect the dots across a rapidly evolving digital world, through on-the-ground reporting in places typically overlooked and underestimated.
Techdirt
Started in 1997 by Floor64 founder Mike Masnick and then growing into a group blogging effort, the Techdirt blog relies on a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies’ ability to innovate and grow.
The Canary
The Canary is a anti-oppression, decolonised, and recolonised radical media outlet that publishes the truth without fear or favour. We publish stories that matter to ordinary people across the UK, whether the corporate and state media like it or not.
Usermag
We document the people and movements that shape the internet – from weird online phenomena, to under-the-radar trends, to platform developments, to policy initiatives, to the powerful forces that shape our online world. It's about who has power on the internet and how that power is being wielded.
News: U.S.A.#
Prism
Prism is an independent and nonprofit news outlet led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice. Together, our journalists go where justice requires. Activists, thought leaders, decision-makers, and all those who believe in justice for all come to Prism for deep reporting and honest insights on the most pressing injustices of our time—delivered through the lens of those who are most impacted.
Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting
Democracy faces an unprecedented threat from an authoritarian movement built on lies and contempt for the rule of law. The first and most critical defense of democracy—a robust, independent free press—has been missing in action. Corporate and billionaire media owners have shied away from confrontation, engaged in false equivalence, and sought to curry favor with Donald Trump. It is hardly surprising that readers and viewers are fleeing from these outlets. Americans need an alternative. The Contrarian is that alternative: unflinching, unapologetic, and unwavering in its commitment to truth-telling.
The 74
The 74 is a nonprofit news organization covering America’s education system from early childhood through college and career.
The Contrarian
The Markup investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society. (Thanks to werd.io for the recommendation.)
The Markup
The Markup investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society. (Thanks to werd.io for the recommendation.)
Personal Blogs#
Bardo Burner
Way back when blogs were called e-zines – the mid-90s – we made one called Bardo Burner… Sadly, our day-to-day lives got in the way of that labour of love and we jacked it in after a couple of years. Here we are again, reviving the old name just because, but this time primarily exploring issues related to healthy, sustainable living, which for us is strongly rooted in veganism… you’ll find articles here covering everything from cruelty-free cake and vegan restaurants to yoga and Pilates.
Brennan's Weblog
I write about tech criticism, Indigenous issues, the craft of writing, and whatever I can't stop thinking about.
MediaActivist
The website of Jay Baker (they/he), a long-time guerrilla journalist and documentarian.
Politics: U.S.A.#
ProPublica
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. (Thanks to werd.io for the recommendation.)
The Appeal
The Appeal is a nonprofit news organization that envisions a world in which systems of support and care, not punishment, create public safety. The Appeal’s journalism exposes the harms of a criminal legal system entrenched in centuries of systemic racism. We equip people with the information necessary to make change, and we elevate solutions that emerge from the communities most affected by policing, jails, and prisons in the U.S.
The 19th
An independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. (Thanks to werd.io for the recommendation.)
The Marshall Project
The Marshall Project seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system. (Thanks to werd.io for the recommendation.)
Tech#
Planet KDE
A feed aggregator that collects what the contributors to the KDE community are writing on their respective blogs.
Veganism#
Animal Justice
Read the latest news from the fight for stronger laws and better enforcement for animals in Canada.
Web Development#
Own Your Web
A newsletter by Matthias Ott about designing, building, creating, and publishing for and on the Web.