Michael: “Because, sometimes I look back at the show and think I should have enjoyed myself more.”
Jerry: “Michael, I could say that myself; but that was not our job. Our job was not for us to enjoy it, our job was to make sure they enjoy it. And that’s what we did.”
“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living — that is, to go on doing things you don’t like doing — which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.”
In light of the wide range of good I wrote an email to someone this morning that needed correcting. I was on my way to writing, “… then you can make the best possible product for your audience,” and stopped myself. Instead I wrote, “… then you can make a valuable product for your audience.”
The difference between the two is vast. When I’m looking to make the best possible product I’m sweaty and lusty and over-confident and ashamed of not knowing more and terrified of not being successful and anxious… very anxious.
When I’m looking to make something valuable I’m thoughtful, insightful, patient, confident, joyful, humble and earnest. I’ve got an audience, I get to serve them, I understand them, and there’s a wide range of potential outcomes and, due to the fact that I’m a hard worker and have good taste, most of those potential outcomes are Good™.
If you want to make the best possible product, start by making something valuable. Then keep making it better.
“He claimed that his method of writing was to hook his gonads in parallel with his thalamus and disconnect his cerebrum.”
Jubal Harshaw via
I have a shot of espresso every afternoon. I love it. I’ve learned a lot about tasting and noticing flavors. Woodsy, dirty, sweet, astringent, blueberry, raspberry, tart, caramel, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, hazelnut, etc.
When you get good at something you can get snobbish. It’s your right. But with espresso I’m surprised how wide the range of “good” is, and how I’m pleased as punch with anything within that range.
I feel the same about design and, in many ways, business in general. There’s a wide range of good. There’s an hundred possible potential good outcomes for my design of Think Traffic or for the eventual offering of Fizzle.
Make sure you know what good is… for you, your business, your people. Do the work to know what success looks like, what the desired outcome actually is, what makes it balanced, not too acidic, not too boring.
Then, don’t waste a bunch of energy and effort splitting hairs that may not matter. Bring out the flavor of the bean and let it be.
“Ask the client what his biggest problem is, then write an ad asking readers to help solve it, providing a coupon for that purpose.”
Jeff Goodby
“Never work for a bad client in your life. Because from a bad client, you will get a worse client thereafter. If you get a good client to begin, you will get a better client thereafter. It is better to starve than get a bad client, because from a bad client you just go down.
Don’t work for money, because it’s the lousiest profession in the world to make money… You do design because you feel it inside; you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment.”
“Simplicity matters worldwide. 70% of people around the world equate simplicity with peace of mind and say it actually reduces the stress in their lives. [This demonstrates] that simplicity is a core human need. If you’re a designer, and you know that, that can provide enormous focus as you commence any design assignment.”
“We have a million fonts, a million colors, and a million piles of shit leaving our fingers all day long. It’s just sad to me, because when you look at this [vintage ephemera], it’s just about communication. One font and a thing called hierarchy.”