Build Places, Not Products

Lucas Crespo is the creative lead of Every. He was previously an art director at the advertising agencies BBDO and VML. Why software shouldn’t just work—it should feel like somewhere you want to stay September 11, 2025 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox. I’ll start where it started: Gmail, midnight, me looking up from the fluorescent screen to the sky outside my window—dark but open, a few thin clouds drifting past the treetops, the kind of depth that reminds you there’s air beyond the glass. By contrast, the inbox on my screen looked like a lab: white tiles, hard light, rows of cells, sterile and devoid of life. For Cora, the AI-enabled email assistant we’re building at Every, we wanted more of what was outside my window and less of what was glowing on my screen: Outside air, inside the app. I took the idea to Midjourney: skies, oil-paint textures, soft depth—the kind of details that add up to a place where you want to spend time. The first images

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