Build Something Beautiful
The craft of building great things
Yoshio Goto and
Build Something Beautiful
Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful.
Govindappa Venkataswamy
Most people want to be fit, most people aren’t.
Most people want to build a successful business, most people won’t.
Most people want to be the best version of themselves, most people aren’t.
Most people have dreams they want to fulfill, most people won’t.
Everyone wants to quit something, build something, be something, do something. Most people
... See moreI wanted to make a product and sell it directly to people who’d care about its quality. There’s an incredible connection possible when you align your financial motivations with the service of your users. It’s an entirely different category of work than if you’re simply trying to capture eyeballs and sell their attention, privacy, and dignity in... See more
Reconsider
Not all design disciplines are equally affected by AI. Those who work with material, scale, and space—book designers, muralists, sign painters, mosaicists—continue to operate through tacit knowledge and touch. Their work still resists automation because it’s rooted in place and presence—it has “aura.” But even in brand design, something similar... See more
Why taste matters now more than ever
If you want to sell music, you must love those songs. If you want to succeed in journalism, you must love those newspapers. If you want to succeed in movies, you must love the cinema.
But this kind of love is rare nowadays. I often see record labels promote new artists for all sorts of gimmicky reasons—even labels I once trusted such as Deutsche... See more
But this kind of love is rare nowadays. I often see record labels promote new artists for all sorts of gimmicky reasons—even labels I once trusted such as Deutsche... See more
Do: make creative decisions that don’t (or do) scale + makes the heart sail.
Don’t: make creative decisions based on PnLs, on balance sheets, on gimmicky trends that appeal to a short-term audience.
As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.
John Collisontwitter.comwork isn’t war, from Jason Fried.
fantastic.
“I think that may be the highest purpose of any work of art, to inspire someone else to save themselves through art. Creating creates creators.”
― Jeff Tweedy, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back)