Michael Darius
Stories,
beautifully told.
A personal portfolio of ventures and work.
Storyboarding, children’s stories, and illuminated experiences.
A story, a world, a place to begin
The Story of Small Step and the First Quiet Night
An illuminated storybook by Michael Darius
From children’s books to illuminated experiences, the story takes shape through words, pictures, and the space between them.
Open the cover and turn the pages here. The original manuscript and founder audio reading are also published in Founder Note 003.
The art of a story
From a small beginning,
a world unfolds.
Storyboarding
Sequence, rhythm, composition. Making room for a story to find its shape, one frame at a time.
Children’s stories
Words and pictures composed together, with space for curiosity, imagination, and discovery.
Illuminated experiences
Ornament, illustration, and typography woven into the page. Different stories, each with a character of its own.
Human Stewardship Guidelines
The Human Stewardship Guidelines are the shared foundation beneath these stories and ventures: keeping the maker’s voice, the work’s origins, and what comes next connected.
Read the Human Stewardship Guidelines →A portfolio of ventures
A personal portfolio of ventures and work.
Practice
Living Instruments
The practice of conceiving and building instruments.
Dream Step Engineering
A method conceived and designed by Living Instruments™.
Dream Step Education
The learning side of Dream Step
Venture work
NapkinSketch
Where an idea begins.
Founding Record
Where a venture’s beginning is recorded.
Nurture
The private home for early ideas.
Small Step
The school inside Nurture.
Business Studio
Proposals, estimates, invoices, and receipts.
Music
SongSketch
A song, prepared.
SongGraph
Songs, their connections, and their provenance.
LOX Music
Music to breathe to.
Correspondence and boundaries
Heads Up
Preparing people to receive meaningful work.
Villain Costume
Public policy and boundary work.
Boundary Receipt Printer
Recording stated boundaries and reported incidents.
Systems
Posterity Systems
The home and system of record for the work.
PosterityOS
The operating environment for the work.
Posterity Reader
A place to read and understand the work.
New Work Security
Home of the New Work Security notice.
The person behind the work
Michael Darius
Storyboard artist and founder of Living Instruments™. Children’s stories, illuminated experiences, and a personal portfolio of ventures—each with a promise of its own.
We didn’t need anybody’s permission to build this, and we’re solving way harder problems than the people who describe us as problems.michael@smallstep.ventures