A minimalist bookmarking site quietly shaping how creatives collect, share, and think online. Designer Nu Goteh, founder of Room for Magic and co-founder of Deem Journal, calls Are.na “the shit.” Not a social app or productivity hack, but a “platform that truly signals.”
How teams actually use it
“When I’m with my team, instead of me making a mood board or a deck, I’ll just make an Are.na channel, and everyone will just chuck into it,” Goteh tells me. It’s become a go-to for website redesign inspiration, which his studio often works on.
He discovered Are.na through a graduate designer. The platform – over a decade old – is populated with art directors, designers, writers, and researchers. “If I was to find something that you posted, an article that you wrote on Are.na, I would think 'this person is rad and will probably like more things that I’m into',” he says.
Are.na is often framed as an alternative to Pinterest, but it’s more about thoughts, musings, and research, not just images. It lets people go very deep, very niche. “It’s all about rabbit holes, it just brings you deeper and deeper into things,” Goteh says.
