“Everything you lay your hand upon serves a specific intent…” –Jonathan Ward, ICON *
Categories: Organization
Tagged: Alignment, Design, Jonathan Ward, Quotes
Posts tagged “Design”
As I look back on 2017, I notice the distinct absence of linearity. Progress comes in fits and starts. Certain decisions and certain moments have bigger impacts, just like certain periods in the stock market dramatically swing investment returns. Challenges and opportunities often arise in unpredictable ways. Like a sprinter in training, long months of unnoticed preparation can lead to a short visible accomplishment. The absence of linearity is exactly why recurring analysis and recurring improvement are so important to advancing in a changing ecosystem, and we all live in one. Let’s all make intentional progress in 2018, even if it’s not linear. “Design does not progress in a straight line. Design grows in response to the same essential forces of breaking down and building up that inform all innovation.” -Esperanza Emily Spalding *
Categories: Project Management
Tagged: Decisions, Design, Equilibrium, Linearity, Performance, Quotes
For five days in October, I seek inspiration among the galleries, museums, streets and tabletops in New York. I have plans to tour Don Judd’s 101 Spring Street and visit as many Dia locations as reasonable, otherwise I expect my days to fill up with whatever strikes my interest at the time. There is certainly no lack of things to do. Wednesday, October 18 On the day of arrival, my primary objective is to settle into the immediate environment. So after dropping luggage, I walk the High Line to the Chelsea Market for a late and leisurely lunch. Feeling refreshed on a nice afternoon, I spend the rest of the day flaneuring in parks, through Chelsea galleries, and in the book collection at Hauser & Wirth. Extra time on an efficient travel day always seems like a bonus, and…
Categories: Travel
Tagged: Art, Beacon, Chelsea, Cooper Hewitt, Design, Dia, Donald Judd, Joris Laarman, Nature, New York, Quotes, Rita McBride, Robert Irwin, Walter De Maria
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum sits on New York’s Upper East Side in a renovated Andrew Carnegie mansion. When Carnegie purchased the land in 1898, it was more than a mile north of what was then considered fashionable society and many levels removed from the deafening steel mills that accelerated his fortune. It seems he wanted space for a garden. On a sunny Sunday morning in October of this year, the Cooper Hewitt galleries are quiet with only a few visitors at such an early hour. I break the silence by tapping a few keys on a dot piano in the Designing with Sound exhibit. The notes present a stark reminder of how sound surrounds us, how sound influences us, and how sound is often most noticeable in its extremes – the overwhelming excess in its presence or…
Categories: Communication
Tagged: Aaron Day, Aki Onda, Cooper Hewitt, Design, Feature Article, Joel Beckerman, Max Neuhaus, Perception, Quotes, Senses, Sound, Times Square
“There is no dividing line between art and science…it’s compartmentalization of the human brain to the extent that you do not need to do that.” –Noel Fitzpatrick *
Categories: Information
“The term we came up with was simplexity. That is the art of simplifying an image down to its essence. But the complexity that you layer on top of it – in texture, design, or detail – is masked by how simple the form is. Simplexity is about selective detail.” –Ricky Nierva, Pixar Production Designer *
Categories: Information
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC had a fascinating Pixar exhibit in 2016. Getting a small peek into the work within the studio gives a real appreciation for the concepts (like simplexity) that are applied in the Pixar process: And how research, collaboration, and iteration wrap around Pixar’s story wheel: “…You are sure right about the importance of a good story in movies. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It takes a lot of work (and rework, and rework and rework) to get it right. And even then quite often we’re not 100% pleased. As John Lasseter likes to say, our films don’t get finished, they just get released.” –Pete Docter While they’re no slackers when it comes to research,…
Categories: Organization