I heard last night that my friend and sometimes colleague Adam Banks had passed away. Maybe a week ago, I swapped some silly tweets with him about PETSCII art. (He and I were both C64 kids.) I last talked with him… I don’t know, but it was too long ago. Time is weird: you seem to have so much of it, and then you have none at all.

But time was something that Adam in his working life could bend like a sorcerer, given how much he could get done on any given day. During his second stint on MacUser, he was a combination of editor and designer that made the magazine truly his; us contributors clung on for the ride, like grinning passengers on an F1 car majestically zigzagging through the grid. The finished article was always brilliant and beautiful — a unique mix of words and visuals that felt like nothing else out there. I was gutted when it closed. I can only imagine how Adam felt.

After that point, Adam and I never regularly worked together again, but we’d communicate often, snarking about tech and chatting about random design and gaming things. I’d frequently dip into his Twitter feed, always full of sagely advice and wise thinking. I keep hoping this has all been a mistake and his Twitter feed will update. It never will.

Adam was a great person and my favourite editor, and I wish it hadn’t been so long since we’d last spoken. The world is a poorer place without him in it. Wherever you are, Adam, I hope you are at peace. Sleep well, my friend.

More tributes from Ian Betteridge, Chris Brennan, Mike Hirschkorn and Carrie Marshall. And here’s the PPA obituary, by Ian Betteridge and Steve Caplin.