More than
one kind of work.
Four Paths is the independent studio behind the things I build outside the boundaries of a single job title.
I’m Mathius Johnson. I build software, but the questions that bring me to a project often come from somewhere else: practice, family life, games, making things, and wondering how a tool changes the person using it.
Four Paths gives those inquiries a shared home. It is a product studio, not a consultancy disguised as one. The projects are different because the parts of life they touch are different. What connects them is a preference for specific problems, honest constraints and tools people can put down when the real activity begins.
Why four paths?
Build, Create, Question and Ground are lenses rather than departments. I use them to notice where a project gets its energy and where it needs to be challenged. An engineering choice may change how much agency someone has. A playful mechanic may make a hard routine easier to begin. A household can expose an assumption that looked perfectly reasonable at a desk.
Technology
Software, AI, engineering, systems and tools.
Creativity
Games, music, writing and playful technology.
Philosophy
How technology shapes attention, agency and a life.
Family
Real households, relationships, limits and ordinary life.
How I work
I work across product design, mobile interfaces, domain models, APIs and release details. Pillars asks how a screen can support a physical practice without becoming its centre. Chore Credits asks how an app can make a family agreement more visible and fair. Life Atlas asks what progress looks like when a task list is too small a frame.
The technical work matters. So does changing my mind when a model proves too rigid, a flow asks too much attention, or a better question appears during testing. The notes record some of those changes; the project pages show where they landed.
Say hello
If a project here connects with something you are making or thinking about, I’d like to hear from you.