How to design better?

My father embodies design to the fullest extent. He says, “It’s a lifestyle, not a job.” He brings the same intensity to everything—whether solving engineering problems, crafting sales messages, or building side projects. He brings opinion. He is a polymath maniacal about every aspect his work touches. He is obsessed.

Conviction often stands in opposition to market trends. To have conviction before validation may make you seem weird or delusional, but it defines great artists—the ability to appreciate what others overlook or even fight against. To borrow YC parlance, they pursue “low-status things.” Maintaining this vision requires courage, especially when it... See more

But at the time, I questioned this approach. Why study semiotics when I could be building a portfolio site? Why pull all-nighters just to endure brutal critiques—tossing the work away and starting over? But the process—thinking, making, critique—proved transformative. The school wasn’t teaching design as ornamentation or styling. Instead, it was an... See more

All this is to say is that for design, as for other fields, the road to greatness is often paved with obsession—an immoderate, unjustifiable surplus of care. Doing things that no-one asked for with a love that no-one could reasonably expect.

A few years back, I came across a piece of advice that made me rethink how I approach my life and work. The idea was to view each day as a chapter in a story. If a day ends on a sour note, it doesn’t mean the story is ruined. Instead, it’s merely a plot twist. You can always add a fresh chapter the next day, changing the course of the narrative.... See more

“Good work” feels like a bunch of highly skilled, tasteful, diverse, and thoughtful people looking at an idea and saying, “I like that...I like that a lot”—and then being totally okay with it when the collective group comes up with an even better idea.