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How this site is made
Built the way we try to build: little waste, honest materials and everything credited.
Light pages
Every page here is a plain file. There is no database, no tracking script, no cookie and no advertising. The weight of each page is printed in its footer, because data centers burn power too, and a heavy page is a kind of waste.
Honest materials
The collages are cut from real things: engravings, botanical plates, survey photographs and a house catalog from 1908. All are in the public domain or released for free use by the institutions that hold them. No image on this site was made by AI. The hummingbird in our mark is drawn by hand.
The pieces, and where each came from:
- Apple, USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — J. F. Brewer, 1910. Public domain. Source
- Cabbage rose (Rosa centifolia simplex) (Cleveland Museum of Art) — Henry Joseph Redouté, 1817–1824. CC0. Source
- Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) — Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain. Source
- Ferns, specimen of cyanotype (National Gallery of Art) — Anna Atkins, 1840s. CC0. Source
- Filicinae (ferns), Kunstformen der Natur, plate 92 — Ernst Haeckel, 1904. Public domain. Source
- Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) — Emil Doerstling, 1913. Public domain. Source
- Garden pavilion in trellis work, L'Art du Menuisier, plate 365 — André Jacob Roubo, 1775. Public domain. Source
- Hummingbirds, from A Monograph of the Trochilidae, vol. 3 — John Gould and Henry Constantine Richter, 1861. Public domain. Source
- Joiners at the bench, from L'Art du Menuisier — André Jacob Roubo, 1774. Public domain. Source
- Ouroboros, from De Lapide Philosophico — Lucas Jennis, 1625. Public domain. Source
- Pointing hand (manicule), printer's ornament — Unknown artist, about 1900. Public domain. Source
- Polypodium vulgare, nature print from The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland — Thomas Moore, nature-printed by Henry Bradbury, 1857. Public domain. Source
- Prosobranchia (sea snails), Kunstformen der Natur, plate 53 — Ernst Haeckel, 1904. Public domain. Source
- Roof framing, plate from the Encyclopédie — Diderot and d'Alembert, 18th century. Public domain. Source
- Scolopendrium vulgare, cyanotype (Cleveland Museum of Art) — Anna Atkins, 1850s. CC0. Source
- Sears Modern Home No. 111, catalog page — Sears, Roebuck & Co., 1908. Public domain. Source
- Sears Modern Home No. 115, catalog page — Sears, Roebuck & Co., 1908. Public domain. Source
- Strelic Residence, Seattle, elevation view (Historic American Buildings Survey WA-241) — John Stamets, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress. Public domain. Source
- Strelic Residence, Seattle, oblique view (Historic American Buildings Survey WA-241) — John Stamets, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress. Public domain. Source
- Sun and moon, hand-colored engraving — Unknown artist. Public domain. Source
- Sunflower (Helianthus annuus), Gottorfer Codex — Hans-Simon Holtzbecker, 1649–1659. Public domain. Source
- The Earth seen from Apollo 17 (the Blue Marble) — NASA, Apollo 17 crew, December 7, 1972. Public domain. Source
- The Flammarion engraving, from L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire — Unknown artist, for Camille Flammarion, 1888. Public domain. Source
- The Gleaners (Des glaneuses), Musée d'Orsay — Jean-François Millet, 1857. Public domain. Source
- The planet Saturn, astronomical drawing — Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, 1874. Public domain. Source
- Timber house frame, from Mechanick Exercises — Joseph Moxon, 1703. Public domain. Source
- Trochilidae (hummingbirds), Kunstformen der Natur, plate 99 — Ernst Haeckel, 1904. Public domain. Source
- Viridian Metaltail (Metallura williami), from A Monograph of the Trochilidae, vol. 3 — John Gould and Henry Constantine Richter, 1861. Public domain. Source
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How AI is used
We use AI to gather and draft the weekly Gleanings and to help draft some essays from our own working papers. Nothing is published until a named person at the studio has read it, corrected it and approved it. Each piece says how it was made, and each factual claim links to a source you can check.
Free to reuse
Words on this site are free to copy, adapt and build on, as long as you credit Studio Viridian and share what you make the same way. The license is CC BY-SA 4.0.
Type
Headlines are set in Fraunces, text in Newsreader, labels in Archivo and typewriter notes in Courier Prime. All four are open-source typefaces.
Mistakes
When we get something wrong, we fix it and record the change on the corrections page.