According to Merlin Mann, there’s two fatal rookie mistakes for any client work:
From the wonderful Back To Work podcast.
The design process contains countless twists and turns which can (read: “do”) alter the project significantly down the line. Sometimes they’re small things like this solid grey instead of that gradient; this width or that width; this color, this shape, this font, this etc. Sometimes they’re bigger decisions: this column there, this image, this message, this size.
All of the “this’s” are decisions that we designers make, sometimes aware, sometimes unawares. Have you ever slipped on the mouse, fk’d something up, and ended up sticking with it because it looked pretty good actually? I have. More than I feel comfortable admitting. (more…)
“It’s easier to defend the work when you’re not busy doing the same for your ego.”
“Where do our own real thoughts come from? How can we access them? From
what source does our true, authentic self speak?Answering that is the work you and I will do for the rest of our lives.”
Stephen Pressfield in Do The Work
“Conception occurs at the primal level. I’m not being facetious when I stress, throughout this book, that it is better to be primitive than to be sophisticated, and better to be stupid than to be smart.
The most highly cultured mother gives birth sweating and dislocated and cursing like a sailor. That’s the place we inhabit as artists and innovators. It’s the place we must become comfortable with.
The hospital room may be spotless and sterile, but birth itself will always take place amid chaos, pain, and blood.”
Stephen Pressfield in Do The Work
This article by a guy I admire a great deal is excellent. It’s made better, of course, if you know the context… but I’m not getting into that right now. Just read this for the time being:
Merlin Mann’s Cranking »
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison
“I always want to do something that number one I love – that just seizes me, rather than try to second-guess the marketplace…
…I’m definitely a believer that you have to be as fearless as you can be. Usually the projects that work out best for me are the ones that I think to myself no one in the world is going to be interested in this except me. I’m starting a new one now, which I’m not going to tell you about, but I have that exact feeling, that I must be crazy to do this because no one will care about it but me. But I’m interested in it and so I’m doing it.”
“And it almost gets to a spiritual level, where it’s just part of the human condition. Simply put, there are dark forces in religions and views of the world that stop us from ascending to higher levels and stops the higher level from communicating with us. The ancient rabbis and monks and Zen masters recognized that as just a part of life. In America, we’re in this “Go, go, go” power positive thinking society, that we think there’s no such thing as evil or that we can overcome it by the proper social program or going to the right school, etc. But George Lucas was right: The dark force is there. And we have to fight it in ourselves everyday. It’s always there, just like gravity, and it’s always keeping us from being able to fly. Resistance is the same.”
“You know, I do know how to prepare for old age. Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceedingly well prepared for my old age.”
~ John Cage via Milton Glaser