2026 Jun 01
- How to be inspired without copying - "You have to be patient with the gap. Years of input precede any output worth keeping. Bach copied Vivaldi for years before the Brandenburgs. Picasso painted in classical mode for two decades before cubism. Joni Mitchell played other people's standards in coffee houses for years before Blue. Hunter Thompson typed out The Great Gatsby and then spent fifteen years writing journalism that no one could ever mistake for Fitzgerald.
These are long, long stretches of work that looked, from outside, like nothing was happening. Inside, the inputs were being broken down into their components, sorted, and rebuilt as something the practitioner could call their own. The temptation, especially now, is to skip this phase by trusting a model to deliver the surface without the years. That temptation should be refused for the same reason a virtuoso refuses to lip-sync: the work that bypasses the apprenticeship produces no apprentice, only an output. And an output is not enough."
- Good Design is About Process, not Product - <blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Focus on your process, not the end product.</li>
<li>Keep your creative and execution modes of working formally separated.</li>
<li>Delay decisions until the moment they must be made.</li>
<li>A short time interval between revisions is more important than whether you will complete a project by its deadline.</li>
<li>Redesign is the essence of design.</li>
<li>Be opinionated in your principles, but liberal in their implementation.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>