Pondering...
Literally translated as Love (Ai) Fit (Chaku) —
When written by its two kanji characters, you can see that the first character means “love” and the second one means “fit.”
refers to the feeling of emotional attachment especially in relation to design of an object.
Love for an object, not for what it does but for what it is. That is what Design is often mostly about.
This level of affection is only derived from an understanding of emotional intelligence. Knowing what your audience desires and the ability to deliver it in a clear and clean manner.
Most often being succinct and removing complexity are far more difficult than you will anticipate but the results are extremely rewarding.
Apollo Robbins - The Art Of Misdirection
Watch this video and then watch it again because I am sure you missed a few details!
Known as “The Gentleman Thief,” Robbins first made national news as the man who pick-pocketed the Secret Service while entertaining former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. He has picked the pockets of more than 250,000 men and women. Forbes has called him “an artful manipulator of awareness,” and Wired Magazine has written that “he could steal the wallet of a man who knew he was going to have his pocket picked.”
He produced and co-hosted the National Geographic program Brain Games, which was nominated for an Emmy as an Outstanding Informational Series.
Apollo Robbins is an American sleight-of-hand artist, security consultant, self-described gentleman thief, and deception specialist.
Most recently he has collaborated with cognitive scientists to design immersive training workshops for law enforcement, military and business applications and lectured at the MIT Sloan and Harvard Kennedy business schools on “The Illusion of Knowledge.”
Thought-provoking...
“It’s usually more important to be in the right room than to be the smartest person in the room.
A person with great judgement and average intelligence will usually beat someone with great intelligence and average judgment.
Judgment is knowing what room to be in."
— James Clear
Wisdom/ What I'm Reading...
The Laws Of Simplicity - John Maeda
A simplified book that details the art of reduction and focus to achieve the optimal.
John Maeda is a well known graphic designer, computer scientist, investor, author and academic.
In this great book, John has outlined 10 laws which define what simplicity actually means and how you can apply its underlying principles in everyday life.
In keeping to the theme of simplicity and reduction the book is only 100 pages.
Do you ever reminisce about the “good ol’ days” when the phone in your living room and the mailbox in front of your house were the only ways to communicate with you from afar? Back when things were simpler?
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful”
The design of Apple’s iPod is a perfect example of these principles in action. Apple knew that adding different buttons for each and every function was the obvious design choice. So instead, the iPod shed all the complexity of other mp3 players by merging these different functions into a single, round control pad.
By combining elegance with function and ridding the device of unnecessary complexities, they were thus able to create a meaningful innovation.
Simplicity in our lives comes through prioritizing the necessary and getting organized
Proper organization starts with grouping and labeling your tasks. For example, if you want to plan out all your responsibilities for the week, you should first write down each task on a Post-it and then group them under a common theme. Doing so makes it easier to process a large amount of information by reorganizing that jumble of tasks into ordered information.
And finally, the essence of simplicity realises that, in the end, all that matters are memories.
About the author
In 1999, he was named one of the 21 most important people in the 21st century by Esquire.[50] In 2001, he received the National Design Award for Communication Design in the United States and Japan's Mainichi Design Prize.
He is formerly Global Head, Computational Design and Inclusion at Automattic where he sought to address the diversity gap in tech by exploring how inclusion could be a key ingredient for success in the technology industry. Before that he was Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) where he advised startups on the business impact of design and continues as a Strategic Advisor. He also serves on the Board of Directors of consumer electronics company Sonos and global advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy.
He was a Professor at the MIT Media Lab for 12 years where he fostered a community of designers who could code and engineers who could design called the Aesthetics + Computation Group.