Sending out the dogs

“Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey” – [Werner Herzog](http://kottke.org/15/01/24-pieces-of-life-advice-from-werner-herzog)

True of ideas and designs as well.

On surfboards and yachts

And being close to the water:

> Baldwin: How many sitcoms could you have launched with the imprimatur of your name on it? You could have your own channel. The Jerry channel.

> Seinfeld: Yeah. But I didn’t take that bait…because most of it is not creative work. And it’s not reaching an audience. You want to be on the water? How do you want to be on the water? You want to be on a yacht? You want to be on a surfboard? I want to be on a surfboard.

> Let me tell you why my TV show in the ’90s was so good…In most TV series, 50% of the time is spent working on the show, 50% of the time is spent on dealing with personality, political, and hierarchical issues of making something. We spent 99% of our time writing, me and Larry.

– [Jerry Seinfeld with Alec Baldwin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTz6GaNKiYY)

Why designers shouldn’t be smart

Recently [Bruce Mau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Mau) came to our office (I know, right?!). Bruce is known for his writing, including several “manifestos” over the years, and he asked everyone in the room to write their own manifesto in 3 minutes (he said he used to give people 6 minutes and they were all finished early).

The first line in my manifesto was “Be the dumbest person in the room”, which got a laugh from Bruce and prompted some followup questions from people around me. I’d written it as a bit of a lark, but the more I think about it, the more important I think it is. So why is it important for a designer to be the dumbest person in the room?

First, of course, it means that you’re always around people you can learn from. Great design is based on collecting insights from the world. If you are the expert in the room, where will you get your new insights? Always surround yourself with people whose experience and knowledge exceeds your own in important ways.

Being dumb also keeps you humble. Every designer knows how it feels to watch someone try and fail to use your design. The biggest temptation in that moment is to tell yourself “that’s just one person, and really this test isn’t representative,” and write off their experience as a fluke. After all, didn’t Steve Jobs ignore his customers? ([Nope](http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2013/12/19/myth-busted-steve-jobs-did-listen-to-customers/), and [NOPE](http://zurb.com/article/588/hiding-in-the-bushes-with-steve-jobs)). But [Henry Ford did, to poor results](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5294)). Your confidence has to come not from your own opinions, but from the success real people have with your product.

Finally, when designers rely too much on their own experience and knowledge, they get lazy. When I’ve worked on a problem for a long time, and feel like I know it well, I’m less likely to do the research legwork needed for inspiration, less likely to ask other people their thoughts, and more likely to settle on the first idea that comes to mind. Conversely, a brand new problem forces me to start from scratch, with eyes and mind wide open to new possibilities (the next line in my 3-minute manifesto read: “When you get too good, start over”).

So really, the problem isn’t with *being* smart–it’s ok to get good grades, kids–but with *acting* smart. The best designers I know approach problems with the openness, humility, and excitement of a child seeing something for the first time. They acknowledge and work against their biases, and never let their intelligence get in the way of the right answer.

Just get started

“The muse visits during the act of creation, not before” – [Roger Ebert](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-muse-1999)

Working inside the barn

“I had some time on my hands, I wasn’t working much in my, ahem, chosen profession. An aspect of fortune is that, when it’s raining, then you gotta work inside the barn, you know?” – [Robert Downey Jr.](http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/19/robert-downey-interview/?iid=EL) on recording an album

The beautiful question

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” – [e.e. cummings](http://www.mrbauld.com/ee.html)

The genius of childhood

“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.”
― [Charles Baudelaire](http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/25444-the-painter-of-modern-life-and-other-essays-phaidon-arts-and-letters)

My favorite movie design moments

Documentary or drama, I’m a sucker for watching people be creative. Here are a few of my favorites:

Drama

• Don Draper pitching the Carousel – the ultimate example of story beating tech specs.
• Inventing the hula hoop from The Hudsucker Proxy – especially the naming at 2:40.
• Once studio session – The way the mixing guy gets gradually interested, the sheer sense of exhaustion at the end of the night, the way they all head out into the sun in the morning. The build of the scene is awesome. The linked scene is just part of it; the scene starts at 56:00 in the full movie.
• Dodge Dart: How to change cars forever ad – I love the way they celebrate sketching and prototyping. Tons of other versions with different examples too.
• Homer Simpson designs a car – in one fell swoop The Simpsons lampoons both expert-driven design and focus group techniques. The shot of Homer in the wind tunnel always gets me.

Documentary

• Making The Incredibles (some clips; the DVD has the best stuff) – My all-time favorite. About 90 minutes of in-depth stories and explanation about the process of making the film, with a ton of similarities to great product design. I watch this at least once a year. My notes.
• The Mystery of Picasso – Picasso painting on an illuminated sheet of glass, so you see the strokes build and change into something completely different than he started with. The paintings at 1:00:00 and 1:04:30 are mind-blowing.
• Comedian – Jerry Seinfeld tries to follow up his outlandishly-successful sitcom career by getting back on small comedy stages and writing a new standup act. Inspiring to see the courage and introspection that goes into it. My notes.
• Sketches of Frank Gehry – Gehry’s experimental way of developing buildings combines art and science in a unique way. My notes.
• A Day in the Life of John Lassetter – Lassetter seems like a wonderful leader (2017 update: not always) and his optimism is infectious. My notes.
• Art and Copy – I find advertising has a lot of parallels to concept design, and this film collects the thoughts and processes of several different advertising luminaries. My notes.
• The Pixar Story – The way they build collaboration among roles in a team is unparalleled. My notes.
• Tough Room – Ok, this is just audio (from NPR) but The Onion’s headline pitch session is amazing. I love how they judge stories by the headlines alone.
• Six Days to Air – How each South Park episode is made in a week. The forced constraints have created a lot of innovation in process and technologies.
• Get Back – The extended version of The Beatles’ Let it Be sessions is worth watching in its 9-hour entirety to see how the famous band actually operated. I love how they mostly sound like a bad Beatles cover band, forgetting words and hitting the wrong notes, until you realize they’re coming up with the iconic songs on the fly. My highlight is watching Paul noodle his way to the composition of Get Back over 4 amazing minutes.

A different kind of direction

[A nice comparison of film directing styles](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-galenson/not-all-auteurs-are-dicta_b_909764.html) by David Galenson, ranging from the conceptual dictator to the experimental collaborator. Also draws parallels to the different design approaches of Apple and Google.

> [Robert Altman] encouraged his actors to improvise: “What I want to see is something I’ve never seen before, so how can I tell someone what that is? I’m really looking for something from these actors that can excite me.”

> Altman considered collaboration the essence of creativity: “If the vision were just mine, just a single vision, it wouldn’t be any good. It’s the combination of what I have in mind, with who the actor is and then how he adjusts to the character, along with how I adjust, that makes the movie.”

Galenson expands on the two styles in [a post exploring the “lifecycle” of creativity](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-galenson/the-two-life-cycles-of-ar_b_758086.html).

Fortune’s favor

Most of doing great design work is preparing for great design work.