John Cleese on When Creativity Happens
“Now creativity can happen. Because play is possible when we’re separate from everyday life.”
Hitchcock on Pressing
“When we came up against a block [in screenwriting] and our discussions became very heated and intense, Hitchcock would suddenly stop and tell a story that had nothing to do with the work at hand. At first I was almost outraged. And then I discovered that he did this intentionally. He mistrusted working under pressure. He would say, “We’re pressing, we’re pressing. We’re working too hard. Relax; it will come.” And, of course, it finally always did.”
Hitchcock’s Writing Partner via Cleese
Ben Pieratt on Getting Started
“If you don’t know what you want to build, then start paying closer attention to the things that already interest you.”
Ben Pieratt on The Opportunity
“The opportunity is in building a more efficient, rewarding, communications channel between consumers and makers.”
Robert Towne on Getting Into the Character
“The single most important question, I think, that one must ask one’s self about a character is what are they really afraid of?”
Robert Towne via ∞
The explorers now, pretty much, stay home
Aaron Draplin’s 50 Point Plan
Saul Bass on Clients and Budgets and Beautiful Things
Saul Bass on clients and budgets and beautiful things. via Frank
Annie Dillard on Spending it All
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
Using Apple’s Keynote instead of PhotoShop design mock-ups
A list of reasons why the team at EdenSpiekermann use Keynote instead of PhotoShop for all the heavy lifting in their design process:
- Ease and spread of use
- Flexibility and non-destructive editing
- Clever grid lines
- Animations for prototyping
- Libraries/third party add-ons
This is interesting to me. I would never have guessed. I’ve used Keynote enough to be skeptical, though I’d like to give it a try.
If you think about it more as an intelligent wireframe it starts to make sense. Wireframes are so important and never all that helpful—when the client sees colors and pixels and images and layout that’s when they start to get interested/concerned. So keynote may be a good way to bridge the gap between grey boxes and final designs.
Designing in Keynote resources
Very cool list of resources, videos, etc, on designing with Keynote: Keynote Kung Fu.