Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.
—Bertrand Russell

I tend to define design as “the intentional ordering of components” or “logically solving problems.” That’s a much broader definition and meaning than we usually attach to design, or for that matter, to designers. It’s typical to view design as the window dressing, the Photoshop files, the pretty stuff, etc. Design is about the way things look, right? You hire a designer to make things look nice, to pick typefaces or colors, and draw logos, don’t you?

That’s partially true, but deadly false if it’s your sole viewpoint. If design doesn’t show up on our radar until the end of a project and we see it as nothing more than the icing, we’ll probably get a pretty looking, icing-covered poop cake. From a distance, it looks great; the closer you get to it, the more you realize something stinks. And let’s hope no one has to actually use it, because they won’t walk away happy, much less ever wanting an encore performance. Second chances are hard to come by for those that don’t value design.

Good design is not a slick add-on or an optional extra. Good design is an essential part of every interaction, every touchpoint, every service opportunity, every creative endeavor, and every communication between your organization and your customers/guests. The wayfinding signage in your local mall or the international airport, the best path of traffic from the door to the register in an electronics or grocery store, the number of steps it takes me to accomplish a given task through your system, the flow of an event—all of these things are designed, or at least should be.

Design is a choice. It is intentional. For every dollar you spend and hour you devote to improving the design culture of your organization, you make a succinct, profound statement about what is valuable and important to you—about the character of your organization. Good design reflects the core of what you stand for and what/who you value. An all-encompassing design culture and strategy in every aspect of your thinking is a more tangible representation of your identity than any clever mission statement or advertisement. And if your design sucks, it simply means you don’t care about people. You don’t bother with their experiences, their perceptions, their take-away impressions, the way they move through your environments or see your world. You don’t care about them.

We can show people that we value their experience(s), top-to-bottom, and that we’re constantly thinking of how to solve problems, ease friction, remove barriers, and serve them in World Class Ways. We have a huge opportunity at changing someone’s expectations (not a word to be taken lightly), but a consistent culture of poorly designed experiences, communications, websites, and transactions shows the opposite. In that, we choose not to alter their perceptions or challenge the status quo. We do business as usual, which isn’t nearly enough.

Tom Peters says:

[Design is] damned hard work, and it requires constant care and attention and love and affection and obsession.

If you can’t sustain it, don’t start it. Don’t even bother. But if you don’t start it, it means you don’t see it as a valuable enough endeavor (too soft a word? How about mission?) to find or build a passionate design culture that owns every experience you create at every level.

Like Tom said, it isn’t easy. But it matters.

When I first moved to Boston in July of 2007, I had a 25-30 minute commute by foot from my apartment door to the office I was working at every weekday. Twice a day I passed 68 and 70 Gordon St.—two stately, Victorian homes with “yards” that were no more than 15′ square.

70 Gordon St. was full of well-kept tall flowers, blooming plants, and climbing vines. It was the beauty high-point of my morning commute. The wildflowers on the sidewalk side of the yard grew so tall and lush that the gardener kept them from sprawling out onto the concrete with thick twine lassos. I imagine it was difficult for her to walk through her own yard.

68 Gordon St. was full of weeds and bare patches of New England dirt.

Left to its own devices and the whims of its owner, 68 Gordon St. would remain a neglected, overgrown, ugly excuse for a yard. But a completely natural, oddly unexpected thing started to happen each week. Tiny spots of color started showing up in the 68 Gordon St. yard. A wildflower here and there, obviously smaller than its neighborly counterparts, but there nonetheless, growing between the weeds. Splashes of beauty, brought about by a little wind and long periods of proximity.

I don’t know that there’s a specific timeline at work here, but sooner or later, things start wearing off on you if you’re in proximity to them for long enough. If you want to grow and learn in any field, the quickest way to some form of success in that regard is to learn from others. Put yourself around what you want to be. Be near. Be in it. Behold what you want to become. I don’t say this with a goal of emulating. I think the greater goal has to be to contextualize it all. Make it your own. But if you want to make beautiful art, put yourself in the company of people making beautiful art. If you want to be an Olympic short track speed skater, don’t waste your time at the local rink thinking about it, go find world class skaters. Get to learning. Simply being around people who are trying new things and creatively learning will rub off on you. It’s inevitable.

If you don’t know anyone doing what you want to do, go get a library card. Start checking out the mass of wisdom and knowledge that’s available to you every day, free of charge.

This principle doesn’t always play out in the beauty-from-ashes manner; the opposite can be true as well. If you’re an optimistic, good-natured kind of person and you exist everyday in a work environment or social circle full of cynical complainers, they will eventually wear you down to a sliver of your former (or future) self. If you’re deeply motivated and full of ambition, sit in the company of the wrong personalities for too long and you’ll find yourself thinking the status quo looks appealing. And then you’ll die. It just might take another 40 years.

Both sides of the proximity equation have the potential to embolden you to greatness (or at least to next-ness, which is highly underrated.) Being in proximity of charisma, skill, beauty, and wisdom will craft you into something to be reckoned with. Conversely, being in proximity of lackadaisical, cynical, wet blanket types can push you forward in a search for more fulfilling work and life.

Or it can break you.

When it comes to what you keep close, and what keeps you close, choose carefully. Choose wisely. Choose for the long term while living in the short term. You’re losing or gaining your creative soul with every step you take towards or away from the people and attitudes in your periphery.

Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.
—Steve Jobs

This has been the best year of client work I’ve ever had. Which wasn’t all that difficult, really. I’ve had some abysmal experiences working with clients in the 8+ years I’ve been a designer. But before you amen me (or better yet, write me off) as one of those oh-so-superior young designers bemoaning idiot clients from hell, let’s get one thing straight…

Every single one of those bad client experiences was my fault.

You’re Supposed to be The Professional, Remember?

Most designers, at least when we’re starting out, think we’re much better at all this whole professionalism thing than we actually are. As an independent designer, I’m typically responsible for choosing the client, helping to determine their goals and the way(s) we can accomplish them, setting and enforcing boundaries, negotiating scope, timeline, and payment, and communicating with them throughout the project, for good or ill.

When I didn’t get paid for work, I likely failed to facilitate an environment that attached clear boundaries and real consequences to lack of payment. When the scope spiraled out of control, I reaped the extra labor I sowed through my lack of clear statements of work prior to beginning the project. When clients were unhappy with our working relationship, I could typically trace it back to my inconsistent or even M.I.A. communication. When clients were frustrating to work with despite my best efforts on my best days, hey, I picked them, right? I chose to enter into a business relationship with that client. In short, I was never a victim of anyone other than myself. And my clients paid for it.

It’s taken me 8 years to get a grip on the business side of things. And 2011 hasn’t just been good in comparison to my previous bad experiences—it’s been good, period. Amazing, really. Predominantly happy clients, better projects, timely payment and, most important of all, a contentedness for myself and my wife that had been absent from any previous adventures in client work.

So, what changed? A number of decisions, each building on the other and progressively improving the whole:

I Only Work 15 Hours a Week for Clients

15 hours might not sound like much, especially to you fulltime independents, but I work a fulltime job, too. And I love my job. But since I direct and lead other designers and developers as much as I design these days, doing work for other clients in the 5–9 is enjoyable and beneficial. If I take four weeks vacation and I actually do that much work, that’s 720 billable hours and +/-200% of my salary every year. Not too shabby. Goodbye, student loans.

I’m upfront with potential clients about my weekly allotment, and it helps me filter well before I ever take on a new project. Sometimes (often, actually) a client needs a 60 hour project done in the next two weeks, and I either politely decline and point them in another direction or I sometimes try to pitch only portions of the work they need, portions that can be completed in my 15 hours. Potential clients love the candor, and I don’t end up taking on work I can’t do, ruining my reputation and doing a disservice to paying clients.

There’s nothing magic about 15 hours; it’s just what made sense for the lifestyle we want to live in this season. We’ve all got 168 hours in a week. If I’m at the office ~45hrs a week, getting 8 hours of sleep every night and doing 15 hours of client work each week, that gives me 52 hours to spend with my family or by myself. Any more work and the cost/benefit ratio dips into unhealthy and unhappy for me and mine.

I Work for One Client at a Time

I can’t juggle. I definitely can’t juggle multiple clients and serve them well on the thin time margins I’m keeping. I’ve always failed when I tried. I know my limits. I don’t want my reputation and talent to take me where my integrity can’t sustain me (and it will, if left unchecked). It damages my rep and renders my talent meaningless in the grand scheme of client services. “He’s real talented, but he doesn’t do what he says” is a massive failure unless my goal is to be known as an unprofessional, out of work, real talented guy. I’d rather serve one client to the best of my abilities than multiple clients simultaneously, mediocrely.

My clients know up front they don’t have all my hours in a week, but they also know they have my full attention when it comes to my weekly scheduled client time. I feel equipped to serve one client for 15 hours a week, and that’s the maximum effort I have to put in. I can sustain that in this season.

When things come up (which they will) I only have one point person to talk to and sort it out. If a scheduling snafu happens, or there’s a content issue, or a direction change, it only affects the only project I have at any given time. I feel freedom to engage the client, fix the problems, and serve them well without pushing off or affecting other clients. Everyone wins.

I Work For Free or For Very Expensive

I have two price points: my hourly fee or nothing at all. Everything in the middle tends to be the most frustrating of experiences. There are plenty of designers who will make you a logo for $200. I’ve chosen not to be one of them.

Once you’ve accepted a low-paying job, it doesn’t matter that “you should be making more money” or “branding typically costs more than this so the client should be happy with what I give them.” You took the job for that fee, and now you have to deliver as agreed, or you suck at being a professional. Don’t take work you’re unwilling to do for the agreed upon price. Simple.

As for free work, most of that takes the form of work for friends—wedding invitations and collateral, show posters, album covers—or pro-bono work for churches and non-profits. Most of my friends can’t afford me, but I don’t want them to have ugly wedding invitations, either. So I help where I can, and I don’t charge them. The barter system is also an amazing option, but whatever the logistics of unpaid work, generosity always comes back around.

I Don’t Begin Paid Work Without a Contract and a Check

That seems like it should be a no-brainer, but the lack of both have chewed me up and spit me out in the past. No paperwork will bite you more than it blesses you.

Mike Monteiro’s excellent talk F*ck You, Pay Me was immensely helpful in making me realize this, along with asking a lot of my peers to see their contracts and office paperwork. If you want to be a professional, you need contracts. There is no other option.

I Over-Communicate Over-Communication

Every client is different, but in general I want clients to want me to stop bothering them. I’d much rather be the annoying one than the one they can’t get in touch with for a week. No one likes to be ignored, and, like it or not, when someone gives you money in exchange for services, they are entitled to know how you’re utilizing your time.

Boundaries Will Set You Free

I know a lot of folks who have fulltime jobs and do client work have struggled with finding a system that works. My boundaries won’t be your boundaries, but trust me, you need to figure out yours. Our industry doesn’t need anymore flighty designers cashing 50% upfront checks and then winging it for the rest of a project. That doesn’t serve anyone.

If you want to enjoy client work, decide what kind of lifestyle you want to have and set boundaries to pave the way. If you want the respect and trust of your clients, earn it.

You’re supposed to be the professional, remember?

One of the things [Y Combinator consciously looks for is] companies that are turning businesses that didn’t use to be software businesses into software businesses.
—Paul Graham, venture capitalist

If HR is simply a support function, interchangeable with something as inane as paying the water bill, you are not a cool place to work. You will not be a magnet for talent or maintain a motivated staff.

You’re just minding the store, putting out fires, and waving at people on their way in and out of the building.

“I’m bored” is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say “I’m bored.”
—Louis CK

Anything that mashes up the The Imperial March, the Theme from Shaft and a Professional Snooker Tournament bumper (among other things) gets my vote.

Spend your time seeking knowledge instead of better equipment. It’s experimenting that’s going to help you develop your craft and develop your own personal style.
—Joey L.

New ideas can alter the balance of power because they challenge the existing. Most of us are seeking some kind of equilibrium, so we tend toward resistance. If you don’t find the path of least resistance before you try to instigate disruption, prepare for a fight.

If you’re not willing to fight, why did you come to work today?

This is the conflict of the 21st century…It comes down to people that believe in scarcity, people that believe in abundance. That’s what all conflict in business will be defined as. And it will become sharper with an economic or a social calamity. It will become even more defined, because people will galvanize themselves. And people who believe in abundance will throw down materialism.
—Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave

Toffler wrote this in 1980. I wonder how much of his future-predicting he thinks came true?

Remember those Lasse Gjertsen videos Hyperactive and Amateur where the admitted non-musician jump cut songs together? Ever wondered what happens when musicians try it?

MuteMath is my favorite rhythm section in modern music.

Two weeks ago I receive an email from a department chair at a local university asking if I’d be interested in teaching a Web Design course this Fall. I was grateful for being considered. It was a humbling thing, especially considering that I didn’t study design in school, and I didn’t finish college. Affirmation like that is a rare thing.

But wait… can a college dropout be an adjunct professor at a university? Apparently not at this particular one, as I was informed after letting them know of my lack of degree. The exchange brought up a myriad of questions for me about higher education and who should be in the classroom.

What is the end game of a college education? Exploration? Finding yourself? Idyllic learning? Certain future employment? When you plunk down your $100,000+ (in the case of the college in question) for four years of higher education, what should you own in the end that you didn’t at the beginning? And what can you get there that can’t be had elsewhere?

[The] object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.
—W.E.B. Du Bois, The Talented Truth

Du Bois, in addition to having a truly amazing name, has a noteworthy point. I’m immensely thankful for the men and women who have taught me to be a man, to take responsibility, to be good at what I do and gracious when I do it. It’s been a valuable education and a gift, and I am indebted.

But I can’t help thinking if I’m willing to show up, work hard, and pay someone to teach me to be a carpenter, I should emerge as at least some approximation of a carpenter. If I don’t, then that educational process has failed me (or I have no business attempting to build things). If I can’t swing a hammer, I got hoodwinked.

There ain’t no rules around here, we’re trying to accomplish something.
—Thomas A. Edison

In an emerging field like web design, where so few professionals even remotely know what they’re doing, we need experienced professionals¹ teaching our students and preparing them to do actual work in the marketplace. If colleges are deadwed to prioritizing instructor pedigree over the ability to give students the best possible education in new fields, are they prioritizing the wrong things at the expense of the student?

I suppose this is the way of the world—every good system needs gatekeepers and guardrails—but if the policies that create the system for education potentially hamper education and don’t tap into the community for experienced, capable instructors, how is that success for the student?

1. This isn’t about me, or not being chosen. There are hundreds of talented, thought-provoking, able designers who should be imparting wisdom to people long before I wield a syllabus. ↩

We must work on a scale proper to our limited abilities.

We must not break things we cannot fix.
—Wendell Berry

In Academia, high school students have to fight to become undergraduates. Undergraduates have to fight to become PhD candidates. PhD candidates have to fight to become adjuncts. Adjuncts have to fight to become tenured and tenured professors have to fight to become Dean. I can’t even think of a single online community that bears even the slightest resemblance to this sort of power structure.
—The Evaporative Cooling Effect

I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.
—Brian Tracy

Some friends from Cincinnati/Nashville are making their first feature length film called The Many Monsters of Sadness and they’ve got a Kickstarter campaign to raise a small budget for the 10-day shoot. If the stills thus far are a taste of what’s to come…

…then I’m excited. They’ve got 3 days left to hit their $12,000 goal hit their $12,000 goal but can still take more funds, so if you feel inclined, go help them out, get your name in the credits, and be a part of making movie magic.

Ryan Singer wrote a great short post on hiding your design process versus designing in the open. All the comments are intriguing, and I especially loved this one from Ryan:

[Regarding the fear of being micromanaged as a designer], the question is whether or not you want to learn. If you see design as a learning process, then you will want steady feedback to tell you how you are doing.
—RS

The first difficult thing most designers have to give up is the fallacy that their first draft should be finished and pixel perfect. Designers need the constant feedback loop. Designers need direction. They need help. Cooperation. Collaboration. They do not need to hide. And they don’t need to waste time crafting every detail of their version of a perfect first draft all at once. Design needs room to breathe and change, because everything affects everything.

The fear for the director is becoming a hovercraft. But if you don’t engage, you’re not really directing are you? You’re just managing. Those aren’t the same thing.

The designer’s fear of showing work early and often and the director’s fear of micromanaging are both rooted in pride. So what are you more concerned with? Being embarrassed or doing seriously amazing work? You can’t have both.

The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All execution is a matter of navigating priorities, people, and politics. If you can’t prioritize or if people aren’t your thing, you have no business being in business.

If you don’t “do politics” you don’t do Getting Stuff Done.

Six weeks before an East London community swimming pool facility was set to be destroyed, Nike 6.0 turned it into a world class BMX park for four weeks of events and workshops.

(via the always on point Chitwood & Hobbs)