We are what we know. Tell me everything you can about ant colonies. That’s it? Why limit yourself to the things that make you a passable designer/engineer/person. You were taught in school the bare minimum to master your discipline of choice. Those who are hungry venture outside of their comfort zone and bring to the [...]

All good designs have one thing in common, they are conceptually simple. At the heart of everything is a simple digestible idea. Call this what you will; essence, thesis, spirit, substance. Aesthetic or concept wise stop blah blahing your audience and get to the point. Most importantly figure out what your point is.
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The late Arthur C. Clarke stated, as one of his laws of predictions, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In other words, under the right circumstances products can appear to be supernatural. Magic is a product just like any other. Illusionists like David Copperfield don’t actually make people levitate, but if you can’t [...]

When I lived in San Francisco I had a wonderfully eccentric dutch friend who worked for Peclers Paris. Peclers is a company in the business of forecasting the upcoming trends much the same way as a meteorologists might wave his/her stick around and proclaim the weather for next Monday. The difference though is that Peclers [...]

William McDonough, author of Cradle to Cradle discusses that all design has a signal of intent. What is it that your product is trying to accomplish? His point is that if modern design is trying to accomplish the devastation of our environment then it’s well on course. This was the example that came to mind [...]

I’m going to dedicate today’s post to the art of subtlety. This very conversation has come up twice in the last two days. First in my class yesterday on storytelling and then again today when I discussed “good advertising” with my mentorship. The question is, Why add unnecessary complexity when you can go the route [...]

As the world makes the transition from analog to digital a certain level of preciousness is lost. It doesn’t take a massive amount of work to snap a photo. There’s no need to fiddle with rolls of film. No longer a week delay between capture and development. Don’t even get me started on how easy [...]

I had this interesting conversation with a colleague today over lunch. I had the Slow Roasted Long Farm Pork Sandwich w/ salsa verde. She had the Grilled Chicken w/ roasted vegetables & harissa yogurt. The discussion went something like this. She said that success in products is all about timing. I argued that success in [...]

Real genius is not stuck in one domain. Real genius means that you are free to create in any medium you fancy. Realize that every pioneer in every field didn’t have a school to learn their discipline. That’s right, they sort of just made it up as they went. That should tell you something about [...]

“Experts” claim that a person decides whether they like you or not within the first twenty minutes of meeting. I think that this is an extremely liberal estimate. The process of weeding really only takes three minutes. You have three measly minutes to decide the span of an entire friendship. Will it be BFF’s or [...]

I’ve realized something so profoundly stupid that I quiver at the thought that I’m actually going to write about it. What I’m talking about are details. Details aren’t for everyone, most get by just making do with the big bludgeoning obtuse shapes that form their world. But my world is saturated in particulars. From [...]