A Great-Looking Decade

Back in 2020, we were delighted to celebrate Neale’s fifth anniversary as Rogue Amoeba’s designer. It’s now 2025, and he’s still here doing stellar work. That means it’s now time to celebrate a full decade of Neale Van Fleet!

When you’re using one of our apps, perusing our website, or check in with us on social media, you’re undoubtedly looking at something Neale created. That’s even true of this laudatory blog post, which recycles his artwork from past posts.

Major App Updates and More

Since we last feted Neale, we’ve shipped three massive new app updates, and he led the design of all of them.

When compared against the revolutionary version 3, Audio Hijack 4 was more of an evolutionary update. With over 100 new features, however, it was still a massive design job. Neale rose to the challenge. I always enjoy his design evolution posts, but The Design of Audio Hijack 4 is a particular favorite.

After that came Farrago 2. Neale’s idea to allow the use of emoji on tile faces was a stroke of genius, making it possible for tiles to appear distinct while still maintaining an overall uniform look. He talked about that, and much more, in “The Design of Farrago 2”. That post delightfully details how he managed to make a soundboard app so visually appealing.

We’ve also had dozens of point updates to our apps, and improvements like the sleek new Permissions window certainly didn’t design themselves. A few years back, Neale even went from designer to sound designer when we made the confetti in our License window accessible.

If you’re curious what that means, click the banner to read all about it.

Whimsical Things

We try to have a good amount of fun here, and Neale’s no stranger to that either. You might recall our Historic Screenshot Archive, which displays hundreds of images from 23+ years of Rogue Amoeba software. In addition to helping set that up, Neale also created some fun images to display on social media.

Last year, Neale added a special exhibit dedicated to Ammo the Amoeba. That page features dozens of assorted images of our mascot, and it’s a delight.

Even more delightful was Neale’s series on “The Least Likely Ways to Install Rogue Amoeba’s Apps”, like the goofy floppy disk seen above. If you missed that, you’re really in for a retro treat.

So Much More

Neale’s work encompasses far too much to list it all. Day in and day out, his work is outstanding, and we’re lucky to have him. Our users are too!

A Beautiful Award for Beautiful Work

Long-time readers might remember just how Rogue Amoeba celebrates a 10th anniversary: With a bespoke silver token. Neale’s was once again handcrafted by Quentin in his home forge, and it’s as beautiful as ever.

Neale is a particularly worthy recipient of this award, because he designed the logo it represents. We hope it brings him a feeling of pride., because we’re tremendously proud of his great work.

Closing

It’s an honor to be able to celebrate so many employee milestones here. The team that makes the products you use every day is second to none, and it’s a privilege to be able to work with them for such long tenures. Neale is no exception to that.

So thank you for ten great years, Neale, and here’s to many more to come.