Category: Design

Seth Godin on Being Satisfied Creatively

“Are you satisfied creatively?

 

Not even close. That’s a very dangerous place to be and it would truly depress me if that happened and I would get very scared as well. I think if your goal is for everything to be okay, that’s a mistake. To achieve that goal, the only obstacle you’d have to face tomorrow is to eliminate all risk so that everything would be okay. I’ve made the decision that I’m never trying to make everything okay. I’m trying for there to be more loose ends, not fewer loose ends.”

https://thegreatdiscontent.com/seth-godin

Today I’m making motion graphics in After Effects, tomorrow I’m setting up a new site for a client in WordPress, the day after, who knows!? While it does afford a certain level of discomfort, I’d much rather be pushing myself than complacent with just one domain.

 

 

Greg Hoy on the Cycle of Agency Life

“Time and time again, ideas were presented to various internal stakeholders, all of whom had their own agendas and budgets. Pushing ideas through the maze of red tape and exhausting levels of buy-in was usually a soul-sucking effort in futility. Even though everyone was theoretically working for the greater good, everyone was working against each other at the same time. Great ideas became mediocre ideas that became ghosts of ideas put on the back burner.”

https://the-pastry-box-project.net/greg-hoy/2014-april-17

Having only worked with and for large internal shops I’m always curious as to what the other side of the table (at a dedicated agency) would be like.

Mills Baker on Design and Solving Human Problems

“Using Paper, I have a sense of anxiety: what if this is what designers make when not yoked to “product thinking”? What if Matas et alia sans Jobs or Forstall are capable of impossibly perfect physics in UIs, of great elements of design, but not of holistic product thinking, of real product integrity? What if design uses its seat at the table to draw pretty things, but otherwise not pay much attention to the outcomes, the user behaviors, the things enabled?”

…

“In order to avoid losing its place atop organizations, design must deliver results. Designers must also accept that if they don’t, they’re not actually designing well; in technology, at least, the subjective artistry of design is mirrored by the objective finality ofuse data. A “great” design which produces bad outcomes —low engagement, little utility, few downloads, indifference on the part of the target market— should be regarded as a failure.”

http://mokriya.quora.com/Designer-Duds-Losing-Our-Seat-at-the-Table

Mills Baker has some great thoughts about the role of design and its impact on the success of a product. It reminds me of an old adage. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. If design is to assist in the utility and usefulness of a product, then you should have some specific goals around what success looks like. Otherwise, you’re just spinning your wheels.

Update: Mills added some followup on Quora. He also posted it on Medium. Worth an additional read.

Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull

“Many have attempted to formulate and categorize inspiration and creativity. What Ed Catmull shares instead is his astute experience that creativity isn’t strictly a well of ideas, but an alchemy of people. In Creativity, Inc. Ed reveals, with commonsense specificity and honesty, examples of how not to get in your own way and how to realize a creative coalescence of art, business, and innovation.” -George Lucas

http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012/

Letter to a Junior Designer from A List Apart

“You’re damn talented. But in your eagerness to prove it, you sometimes rush toward a solution. You pluck an idea from the branch and throw it onto the plate before it has time to ripen. Don’t mistake speed for precocity: the world doesn’t need wrong answers in record time.”

http://alistapart.com/column/letter-to-a-junior-designer

Some good advice for younger folks regardless of profession.