If you read this article you’ll be a better designer/developer/producer because it’s going to be a swift kick to your groin. There’s a reason why 99% of all of the shit out there fails. It’s because somewhere in the design process common sense gets thrown out the window. I know you’re really good at engineering [...]

One of my favorite professors in college once said, “Computer experts were those who had put up with windows long enough to get used to it.” He couldn’t have been more right. Recently, Microsoft has done a great job of pantomiming the Apple operating system but in understanding the rationale behind the design decisions is [...]

Everything in life is about dating. I don’t mean that in the existential, “everything is everything” sort of way. I mean literally you can apply the learnings of courtship to anything you do. Allow me to reorient your thinking on design. Design is like dancing with a stranger.
Your eyes meet from across the room. [...]

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 [...]

Tonight I gave a presentation titled, “Design is Sex, with Michael”. It was created to illuminate the types of things that non-designers should look for when contracting design work. The thing that came to mind during preparation was how significant presentations are in learning how to tell stories. Also, lecturing to a room full of [...]

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 [...]

Being ill in bed afforded me only one pleasure. I watched the entire first season of The Pick Up Artist (PUA). It’s a show based on the seemingly seedy pseudo-science of how to pick up women. More specifically it follows one Master PUA in particular, Mystery and his struggle to teach the art of cool [...]

If you read this article you’ll be a better designer/developer/producer because it’s going to be a swift kick to your groin. There’s a reason why 99% of all of the shit out there fails. It’s because somewhere in the design process common sense gets thrown out the window. I know you’re really good at engineering [...]