ABOUT
Form & Function is a small, founder-run publication about thoughtfully made products and the people who build them. It’s a weekly newsletter with a print edition on the way.
Form & Function started with a frustration. Most product writing either obsesses over specifications that nobody cares about or chases transient trends. Very little of it asks the questions that matter most: does this product actually make daily life better, and does it do so beautifully?
We believe that the things that surround us shape how we think, work, and live. A keyboard isn’t just switches and keycaps — it’s how your desk feels when you sit down to do real work. A backpack isn’t just liters and pockets — it’s how the bag impacts your movement in the world.
So, recognizing this need, we write about thoughtfully designed products at the intersection of aesthetics and utility, and we tell the stories of the founders who made them. We’re independent, opinionated, and building this in the open with a small team that genuinely loves this stuff.
Spencer Pugh, Founder
Our mission is to help restore the golden age of brand loyalty by celebrating the intentionality behind great product design. Through original interviews and behind-the-scenes storytelling, we aim to draw consumers into the journeys of the brands we feature.
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A weekly dispatch told by founders themselves. Each issue features one builder, in their own words, with the products, photographs, and thinking behind their work. Free, in your inbox, every week.
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A print edition is in the works — slow-made, beautifully produced, and designed to live on your desk longer than your last issue of anything else. Details to come later this year.
Founder
Writer, filmmaker, and lifelong product nerd based in Roanoke, Virginia. A decade in marketing and creative work, now building Form & Function full-time. A husband and father of two just trying to make beautiful things and love people well along the way.
Editor
Writer and Literature Teacher. His work lives at the junctions of literature, fly fishing, philosophy, aesthetics, style, and a Christian orthodoxy which, as G.K. Chesterton wrote, can be compared to “a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.”
We don’t cover things because they’re new. We cover what was made well — on purpose, by people doing the work with integrity. Choosing thoughtfully is a small act of stewardship.
Good design is function made beautiful. When something works exactly as it should and looks exactly right, that is not a coincidence. It is the highest standard of craft.
Behind every product worth writing about is a person who chose every detail on purpose. We give them the mic and let them tell you why — without the gloss of a press release.
Form & Function is independently run and transparent about how it’s made. When we partner with brands, we work with ones we genuinely believe in — and we’ll always tell you when we have.
One thoughtful issue a week, in your inbox — a founder’s story, the products they make, and the thinking behind them. No noise, no upsell.