Functionality without beauty is meaningless. Today I listened to S. Sagmeister shares his thoughts on a podcast about how Design without functionality will be embarrassing to us in the future and that he compared it to Soviet design following the collapse of the Bauhaus era. Beauty is a human element that is needed in all...
Driving decisions on dollars and conversion is half the battle – keeping design human centered is key. I sat in a room and listened to an executive describe design direction and his recommendation on color palettes based on his personal preference. This decision of a color battle had been ongoing at this company for years....
When I was a kid, I was sitting in my mothers old Ford Pinto at a gas station waiting for her to fill up the car. I found a yellow bottle under the seat – it looked promising so I took a sip. Little did my 5 year old self know, it was window washing...
Today I flew to Seattle from Los Angeles. Normally, I fly to Seattle because it’s where I grew up. Seeing old friends and family, etc. But this time is different. It has deeper significance for me. I am spending the next 10 days working with Seattle Children’s Hospital, Fred Hutchison Cancer Research and University of...
While at Disney, I served as part of the weekly Style Guide Counsel. The goal was two-fold – 1. To present new work and ideas; then discuss how these fit into the overall brand strategy with the design platform (Note: when I say “design platform” I mean everything from development, ux, content and visual work)....
What’s stopping you from pursuing your dreams? Yourself. It’s perfectly okay to not know what you want to do, even though you want to do something different than what you’re doing now. Being stuck at a dead-end job, having uninspiring people in your life, or relationship problems can do that to a person. It’s totally...
With the ever increasing growth of technology, devices, responsive design, and a mobile-first content driven user experience on the web; it’s becoming clear that the face of web design is changing. There is an increasing gap within web design and other industries of design. The more we progress further into new technology, new capabilities and...
One of the hardest things as a designer is to constantly have an eye for detail. It’s like a disease that every designer is cursed with. But, with the increase of responsive design, I believe that we, as designers, are forced to change our process and with this comes the changing of our focus. Do...
Design is best served when you tear something completely apart to understand how it can best be put back together, finding all flaws and areas to improve along the way. Don’t be afraid to destroy something, only to rebuild it from the ground up to make it better than it was. You have to be...
Creativity isn’t some magical measuring stick to determine who’s “special” in society vs. who operates at a lesser level. Many times I find people referring to me as “the creative” or the “most creative” or something along those lines. To be completely honest, I am no more “creative” than any other human on earth. This...