This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Romina Malta, whose blog can be found at romi.link.
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Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
I’m Romina Malta, a graphic artist and designer from Buenos Aires. Design found me out of necessity: I started with small commissions and learned everything by doing. What began as a practical skill became a way of thinking and a way to connect the things I enjoy: image, sound, and structure.
Over time, I developed a practice with a very specific and recognizable imprint, working across music, art, and technology. I take on creative direction and design projects for artists, record labels, and cultural spaces, often focusing on visual identity, books, and printed matter.
I also run door.link, a personal platform where I publish mixtapes. It grew naturally from my habit of spending time digging for music… searching, buying, and finding sounds that stay with me. The site became a way to archive that process and to share what I discover.
Outside of my profession, I like traveling, writing, and spending long stretches of time alone at home. That’s usually when I can think clearly and start new ideas.
What's the story behind your blog?
The journal began as a way to write freely, to give shape to thoughts that didn’t belong to my design work or to social media. I wanted a slower space where things could stay in progress, where I could think through writing.
I learned to read and write unusually early, with a strange speed, in a family that was almost illiterate, which still makes it more striking to me. I didn’t like going to school, but I loved going to the library. I used to borrow poetry books, the Bible, short novels, anything I could find. Every reading was a reason to write, because reading meant getting to know the world through words. That was me then, always somewhere between reading and writing.
Over the years that habit never left. A long time ago I wrote on Blogger, then on Tumblr, and later through my previous websites. Each version reflected a different moment in my life, different interests, tones, and ways of sharing. The format kept changing, but the reason stayed the same: I’ve always needed to write things down, to keep a trace of what’s happening inside and around me.
For me, every design process involves a writing process. Designing leads me to write, and writing often leads me back to design. The journal became the space where those two practices overlap, where I can translate visual ideas into words and words into form.
Sometimes the texts carry emotion; other times they lean toward a kind of necessary dramatism. I like words, alone, together, read backwards. I like letters too; I think of them as visual units. The world inside my mind is a constant conversation, and the journal is where a part of that dialogue finds form.
There’s no plan behind it. It grows slowly, almost unnoticed, changing with whatever I’m living or thinking about. Some months I write often, other times I don’t open it for weeks. But it’s always there, a reminder that part of my work happens quietly, and that sometimes the most meaningful things appear when nothing seems to be happening.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
Writing usually begins with something small, a sentence I hear, a word that stays, or an image I can’t stop thinking about. I write when something insists on being written. There is no plan or schedule; it happens when I have enough silence to listen.
I don’t do research, but I read constantly. Reading moves the language inside me. It changes how I think, how I describe, how I look at things. Sometimes reading becomes a direct path to writing, as if one text opened the door to another.
I love writing on the computer. The rhythm of typing helps me find the right tempo for my thoughts. I like watching the words appear on the screen, one after another, almost mechanically. It makes me feel that something is taking shape outside of me.
When I travel, I often write at night in hotels. The neutral space, the different air, the sound of another city outside the window, all create a certain kind of attention that I can’t find at home. The distance, in some way, sharpens how I think.
Sometimes I stop in the middle of a sentence and return to it days later. Other times I finish in one sitting and never touch it again. It depends on how it feels. Writing is less about the result and more about the moment when the thought becomes clear.
You know, writing and design are part of the same process. Both are ways of organizing what’s invisible, of trying to give form to something I can barely define. Designing teaches me how to see, and writing teaches me how to listen.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe physical space influences your creativity?
Yes, space definitely influences how I work. I notice it every time I travel. Writing in hotels, for example, changes how I think. There’s something about being in a neutral room, surrounded by objects that aren’t mine, that makes me more observant. I pay attention differently.
At home I’m more methodical. I like having a desk, a comfortable chair, and a bit of quiet. I usually work at night or very early in the morning, when everything feels suspended. I don’t need much: my laptop, a notebook, paper, pencils around. Light is important to me. I prefer dim light, sometimes just a lamp, enough to see but not enough to distract. Music helps too, especially repetitive sounds that make time stretch.
I think physical space shapes how attention flows. Sometimes I need stillness, sometimes I need movement. A familiar room can hold me steady, while an unfamiliar one can open something unexpected. Both are necessary.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
The site is built on Cargo, which I’ve been using for a few years. I like how direct it feels… It allows me to design by instinct, adjusting elements visually instead of through code. For the first time, I’m writing directly on a page, one text over another, almost like layering words in a notebook. It’s a quiet process.
Eventually I might return to using a service that helps readers follow and archive new posts more easily, but for now I enjoy this way.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
I don’t think I would change much. The formats have changed, the platforms too, but the impulse behind it is the same. Writing online has always been a way to think in public.
Maybe I’d make it even simpler. I like when a website feels close to a personal notebook… imperfect, direct, and a bit confusing at times. The older I get, the more I value that kind of simplicity.
If anything, I’d try to document more consistently. Over the years I’ve lost entire archives of texts and images because of platform changes or broken links. Now I pay more attention to preserving what I make, both online and offline.
Other than that, I’d still keep it small and independent.
Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?
It costs very little. Just the domain, hosting, and the time it takes to keep it alive. I don’t see it as a cost but as part of the work, like having a studio, or paper, or ink. It’s where things begin before they become something else.
I’ve never tried to monetise the blog. It doesn’t feel like the right space for that. romi.link/journal exists outside of that logic; it’s not meant to sell or promote anything. It’s more like an open notebook, a record of thought.
That said, I understand why people monetise their blogs. Writing takes time and energy, and it’s fair to want to sustain it. I’ve supported other writers through subscriptions or by buying their publications, and I think that’s the best way to do it, directly, without the noise of algorithms or ads.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
I’ve been reading Fair Companies for a while now. Not necessarily because I agree with everything, of course, but because it’s refreshing to find other points of view. I like when a site feels personal, when you can sense that someone is genuinely curious.
Probably Nicolas Boullosa
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
Hm… No mucho. Lately I’ve been thinking about how fragile the internet feels. Everything moves too quickly, and yet most of what we publish disappears almost instantly. Keeping a personal site today feels like keeping a diary in public: it’s small, quiet, and mostly unseen, but it resists the speed of everything else. I find comfort in that slowness.
Keep exploring
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