Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

The term “designer” is pretty broad. I only consider myself one because I’ve found an interest in expressing my theories through tangible mediums. At heart, though, I’m really just a storyteller and my real passion is not for products but for people.

In what I like to call my “spectrum of subjectivity,” I believe people fall on a line between being very objective-minded and being very subjective-minded. Those on the objective side tend to be more left-brained, mathematical and logical in their thinking and those on the other end are more right-brained, creative and emotional. I think most of us fall somewhere between the two extremes, making the majority of us able to communicate in more ways than one. But in the cases where people fall at one of the extremes, I suggest that their ability to communicate decreases in breadth and increases in depth. If you look at the greatest musicians, writers and artists over the centuries, you see a pattern whereby their brilliance and depth of human understanding is evidenced in their work, yet their interpersonal face-to-face relationships suffer. The same is true for the greatest scientists and mathematicians. The latter made strides in understanding how we work; the former in how we feel. If you move along the line to further extremes, I think there’s a threshold whereby you lose the ability to communicate entirely, in any medium, and you just live inside your head, consumed by your own thoughts. Fortunately or unfortunately, we have pills for that now.

Design falls in a tricky mix of these two extremes. We must use logical, objective reasoning to affect essentially unpredictable and emotional beings. It seems almost paradoxical. Yet we’ve continually seen timeless and effective design in a multitude of mediums for centuries that has affected humanity on deep levels, perhaps illustrating that while we’re all very different emotionally, there are fundamental truths we all share. And that’s pretty interesting, especially to someone like me who’s always felt so distant from everyone else.

I talk a lot about my childhood and my relationship with my parents but in no way do I mean to imply that it wasn’t loving. In fact, I’d venture to say I had too much of it growing up which didn’t prepare me for the lack that exists in the real world. I was raised by people in touch with their emotions and express them freely and then cast into a society of peers who deemed it uncool to do just that.

I love being expressive, doing things for my friends, hosting parties, building social circles and “feeling the love.” To many, it seems out of place, so they try to label it with something more familiar to them (and we all love meeting expectations, right?). I’ve continually found it difficult for people who know me to just accept that maybe there is no technical term for the way I am – I just love love.

It’s nice to feel taken care of, considered, respected, trusted. I think we all really want that at a core level but we cover up over time as we find that the world doesn’t always give us what we want. It’s self-defense, really. Otherwise I see no reason why anyone would not naturally be nice, loving or caring about people they meet. The fact of the matter is, I think we’re a bit starved for it in society – some more than others, of course. But we don’t need much – just little things here and there. They make us feel better put together than individually. It’s the Gestalt theory of psychology – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

This is key to a brand’s success. As long as they’ve existed, companies have tried to “keep the customer in mind” saying things like “the customer is always right”, “we’re here for you”, “you’re special”, “you’re our priority” etc. But if we don’t see it in the little things, it isn’t really true. When you actually look at what Virgin America, for example, does with their brand, you can see why they’re so successful to the point that people are actually willing to pay more for the experience. Every point along your interaction with them, from when you buy your ticket to when you arrive at your destination, is carefully branded to make you feel taken care of. In general, people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars more to sit in first class for what essentially costs the airline nothing – a meal, a movie, a bigger seat, a pillow. The same is true for Apple, in which every detail is carefully designed and obsessed about. They care and we care, so we pay more.

It’s always seemed silly to me that we tend to think of designers as people who “make things look pretty.” The way I look at it, we’re not that at all. There’s a huge difference between those with the technical skillset to render a nice-looking button and those who observe the world and make inferences on what makes us tick, thereby defining the reason for needing such a button in the first place. The problem is that a lot of designers make things based on how they feel which, though emotional in practice, is internally-oriented and totally subjective. Just because they like a color doesn’t mean it actually speaks to the rest of the world. I think really effective designers are inherently psychologists who manifest their theories in objective principles that guide the design.

As a designer, it’s not about you. I’ve learned the hard way, having desperately tried for years to understand and build relationships with my peers and being continually told that what I think doesn’t matter – it’s about what everyone else expects.

We’re starry-eyed with the idea of “changing the world” and that really means affecting humanity – a never-ending quest. Constantly on my mind and something that can, at times, consume me, I do it out of wanting love and wanting to give it. I wish I could break down these walls that people put up to prevent them from being emotional and really connected. But until that happens, I’ll just continue to help make things that try to nudge us closer.

Every now and then when something in my life goes according to the plan in my head, I get almost a kid-like giddiness and can’t help but laugh.

We as humans do well with predictability. Subconsciously I think it almost reassures us that we’re learning, growing and have developed good heuristics about the world and how it works. When something unexpected happens, depending on the magnitude and context, it can be quite confusing. We want to plan ahead. If it’s raining, you take an umbrella. If you pay your bills on time, you keep your electricity. If you’re gonna be late, you call someone (well, some of you).

Similarly, growing up I didn’t expect people would behave badly or turn me down for a date or make fun of something about me of which I wasn’t aware. But they did and to me, it seemed so out of place that I adjusted my psyche to come to expect such things to happen to me.

Developing stories is the only way for me to make sense of the world and feel comfortable within it. If I can predict what should happen, then anything bad that does occur suddenly doesn’t feel so bad. Rather, it’s as though it’s all part of some bigger plan and will make sense later.

I know a lot of people who don’t overanalyze and who just “go with the flow.” But my parents never raised me as someone to do that and take life as it comes. Instead, they taught me to be overly-cautious, plan ahead, weigh the options and be careful. This, of course, isn’t a bad thing entirely, but when it’s coupled with also feeling unaccepted socially, you actually forget how to be a kid, happy, carefree and curious. As a result, I’ve always had a hard time being relaxed about things. I plan out in my mind all the possible scenarios in which something goes wrong or right and then apply the stories to my life, making sure that whatever does happen fits into the story I’ve constructed. And let me tell you, it’s amazing how many ways something can happen that doesn’t meet an expectation.

If I like a girl, I’ll probably try to figure out all the meanings behind her actions, guess what she’s thinking based on what has happened, take into consideration her personal background to educate me on my perceptions and predictions, weigh in the various events in her current life that might affect her and then think about what I’ve done that might have influenced her to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Don’t think I’m crazy – it’s just how my mind works now. Believe me – it’s not fun. For years my friends have told me not to worry so much about these things, but how can I not? It’s built in.

Growing up, conversations with my dad would follow this pattern: “Did you brush your teeth? Take a shower? Put out your clothes for the next day? Did you floss? Who’s the friend you’re visiting? Does he have a last name? Are his parents home? What’s his phone number? You’re wearing *that*? You need to eat more than that. It might rain later so it’s probably not a good idea to go out tonight. What are you wearing for your first day of work? Those shoes? You should buy some new shoes. Let me buy you some new shoes.”

To this day, my dad can’t believe my manager wears a T-shirt and jeans to work. “You should dress nicer,” he says. And those of you who know me well, know that I do dress up… though hard to say if it’s because I really want to.

On the other end of the spectrum, conversations with my mom were more analytical and personal in practice: “What did she say? Well did she say this? That’s odd, I wonder if she meant this. Oh he probably thought you were this so he did that. Have you considered trying this? Maybe if you did that, this would happen. Well she’s probably got issues. Did you say something? Oh you shouldn’t have said that.”

And, lest we forget, I’ve lived with my parents for most of my life until really just six years ago.

Given this, I think it’s understandable why I’ve grown up having been cautious and analytical so nothing could possibly go awry. God forbid I didn’t plan ahead. This was coupled with a need for social acceptance which in turn gave an expectation of who I *should* be. Were I to actually be unique and “myself,” then I really wouldn’t blend in with the expectations of my peers and feel awkward (see previous story).

I will say, however, that while this mindset doesn’t necessarily suit the social life (as you really can’t plan ahead with people since emotions are unpredictable), it does have a lot of relevance to design (surprise?). Not everyone is going to understand something you make, but given a fundamental understanding of psychological and biological principles that we all share – and thinking about every possible use case and scenario in which a task could be completed – you can develop products for the majority of users that meet their expectation.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to design with expectation in mind – that’s why I’m such a proponent for simplicity and consistency. If you make something totally unique, you run the risk of confusion. Were you to first meet the expectation and then *exceed* it, then you’d be all set. When I meet new people I try to build a level of familiarity in our conversations so we instantly feel comfortable and have some connections on things. It’s only after people get to know me that they become aware of my quirks and nuances in my personality that make me unique. Hopefully they’ll like me enough to remain my friend. And that’s the way I think design should be. Familiar enough to learn, unique enough to last.

Let’s never underestimate the power of meeting expectation. In a world of infinite possibilities – and where infinite things can go wrong – it’s amazing just to have a button that does what you expect placed where you expect it.

When you’re a little kid, you have everything to look forward to. You’re optimistic and excited. Bad things haven’t happened yet. You’re not judged. You’re just surrounded by people who love you. Then you go to school. And it goes downhill from there. Or at least it did for me.

When I was young, I loved engaging in the arts, whether it was singing or dancing or drawing or acting or playing music or dressing up. I did it all. And it was fun. But when I entered school, it was made very clear to me by every other child that I was different. And, as such, I became a subject of ridicule. I was terribly confused. I thought my sensitivity, care and attention to detail would make me naturally accepted by my peers, but instead I seemed very out of place.

They wanted to rough-house. I wanted to draw.

They wanted to kill insects. I wanted to save them.

They wanted to make fun of the girls. I wanted to kiss them.

It was lonely, and I didn’t want to be lonely. Having had such a strong passion for all things and a desire to connect with other people, being lonely is probably the worst thing I could have had growing up. Quite a dilemma… you want to be true to the values that make you who you are, but you also want to be accepted and liked.

People suggested that I stop caring what other kids thought and just be myself. But they weren’t there with me in school when I had to constantly sit alone, when I was ridiculed to tears or when my entire fifth grade class sang the lyrics to “We are the Champions” and replaced the phrase, “No time for losers,” with, “No time for Eric.” Be myself? I think not.

It became apparent to me pretty early on that I had to choose between being me and being accepted. I chose the latter and tried every which way I could to fit in: changing how I thought, what I cared about, how I dressed, how I acted. To me, there seemed to be no other option. Lucky for me, I guess, I was able to translate my inner voice to other mediums, such as art and doing well at school. Granted, it still set me apart from other people, but there was no way I was going to purposely do poorly in school just to fit in … it was the only part of me I retained. Kids were drawn to characteristics I just didn’t have, so I was left to change everything else about me.

I begged my parents for a new box of crayons to bring to class so kids would want to draw with me, even though I always preferred colored pencils. It backfired; suddenly kids were interested in aromatic markers instead.

I needed my dad to come in and give a talk about taking care of your teeth so I could help out with the demonstration and feel special. It backfired; he didn’t let me help out.

I got myself a laptop in eighth grade to take notes in science class so that kids would think I was cool for having it. It backfired; I became too much of a nerd.

I had to get a pretend earring so I could seem as cool as my friend who had a real one and never seemed to get teased. It backfired; the kids said it made me look gay.

I had to buy the popular clothes from Abercrombie so I could at least start looking like everyone else. It backfired; none of the clothes fit me.

I had to force myself to climb the unknotted rope in gym class like everyone else. It backfired; I tired quickly and then couldn’t even climb the easier, knotted rope.

I had to make fun of other kids to avoid getting ridiculed myself. It backfired; I got detention and ridicule anyway.

I had to cheat on test so I could ensure I’d still get good grades. It backfired; somebody told the teacher.

I tried to make fun of myself and beat the other kids to it. It backfired;  I just gave them better material.

I tried helping my classmates out during our fourth grade group Scrabble sessions by scoring big words, but that backfired because I was taking the game too seriously.

I tried getting involved in intramural basketball. But that backfired too; I wasn’t very good and thus, I was teased.

The only thing I really had going for me – in my mind – was that I was doing well in school and was able to make things that people liked. So I clung to that as my identity and safe haven. When I felt bad about myself for anything, I told myself I didn’t have to care about what people said because, for example, I did better on a math test or I was friends with the teacher or my class project got the highest grade. It gave me a sense of self worth which I was severely lacking. To add to my frustration, I often felt unable to express myself honestly and kids often misinterpreted what I meant and twisted it so I still looked like a bad guy.

I feel like I’ve been so concerned with how other people see me for so long that I’ve blurred the lines between what I do for me and what I do for other people. And this, of course, is bad practice in design.  A lot of designers, including myself, have advocated the sentiment that you shouldn’t let your users define your brand or your product. That’s not to say, of course, that you shouldn’t consider their opinions and feedback and weigh it into your decision-making. But at the end of the day, you really have to create your own vision and be confident in it. This is a value I know is central to companies like Apple and Facebook.

You can’t design for everyone. I should know – there’s just no way to make everyone happy. If you’re not confident in yourself and you try diluting your identity to incorporate everyone else’s feedback, you end up with something where no one’s happy – and, in the design world, products which are overly complicated, lack focus and ease of use, and are just unpopular. This is something I’ve found from my experience at Microsoft. Despite incredible talent and success, they seem to have lost their way. When you try to satisfy every constraint and spend so much time appeasing other people, you become something you’re not and it’s a terribly sad situation when you realize it (and even more sad if you don’t).

Sometimes I don’t even know if what I feel or think is actually me or if it’s just the result of years of adapting. I like to think I’ve tried hard to be true to my values and beliefs, but there’s always some doubt in my mind about my motivations and reasoning. Even now that I’m a lot older and have had a lot of experience at a lot of places, I’m still not entirely confident. And it’s hard being yourself when you don’t even know who you are yet.

Design, for me, is a personal affair. That’s not at all to say, however, that the design decisions I make are based on subjective opinion. Rather, my thoughts and personal experience have naturally lead me to the design mindset and it’s pretty much everything I am today.

As a child, I took great interest in putting things together, building structures and figuring out how things worked. I was very akin to seeing shapes in everything and describing complex objects as made up of smaller, more recognizable components. But more importantly, I also tended to see or be sensitive to faces in objects and would instantly feel connections that made me very sympathetic and concerned for their well-being. As a result, I often saw plush toys or porcelain figures I had to have and ended up collecting hundreds of them over the years. I grew really attached to characters in stories and movies. I cried when I met Cinderella at Disney World because, I said, “they ruined your dress!” I saved flies and ants that I found in our house. I held little funerals for mice that my cats brought in. I couldn’t throw away so much as a piece of paper with a drawing of an animal on it without feeling guilty. I wouldn’t eat chocolate animals because I saw them as real animals and felt bad. I would even hold onto little pink erasers if they resembled an animal. The only way my parents ever got me to finish items of food was by telling me that if I didn’t eat the last bit, it would be lonely.

Aside from my mathematical, spatially-oriented mind which I’m sure most designers had as kids, my dedication was really more to relationships, feelings and personification. I built up a miniature town of my little animal figurines, complete with houses, trees, cars, handwritten menus at restaurants and little pieces of food I made out of clay. And with the setup continually growing from just a shelf in my room at age six to an entire room in our house by the end of middle school, I developed deep and complex stories between all the animals and would write at length and in detail about them. It was common knowledge across my family that someone could so much as rotate one of the pieces and I would be able to figure out which one it was.

I couldn’t explain it at the time, but everything had to be “a certain way.” It wasn’t until I started school, however, that this mindset really became so important to me on a personal level.

Kids have an amazing ability to make fun of anything they can. For me, it was my short height, thin build, weird clothes, bushy hair, artistic flair, lack of physical strength, inability to play sports, sensitivity, being jewish and having good grades. To add to my lament, I also loved girls way earlier than most kids and was continually frustrated that none of them liked me back. The kids made fun of that too, of course. To this day, the years of ridicule and need for acceptance have instilled so much neuroticism in me that I’m affected in some way in everything I think and do.

Unable to feel comfortable showing people “the real me,” I found more superficial ways to get people to like me: I told jokes, I performed magic tricks, I played piano, I drew pictures – anything I could do that would get people to like me without forming a “real” connection. Granted, this did instill a somewhat natural inclination to be a performer, but it masked what otherwise would have been an ability to connect with people on a more genuine level all those years.

Additionally, my parents – who finally got divorced when I was nine – were not your typical parents. My mom never made friends with “soccer moms” because she was probably too liberal-minded and she was starting a company in our basement. My dad never bonded with any other parents because he’s sensitive, hates sports and has an idealistic image of how the world should work. Both were overprotective and instilled their values – and fears – in me from a young age. As such, I grew up rather sheltered, cautious and sensitive yet ambitious, creative and an independent-thinker.

Between the social scene at school and the odd dynamic at home, the only place I really felt safe and at peace was among my stuffed animals and miniature town, with my stories and relationships and characters. I often begged my mom not to make me go to school so that I didn’t have to interact with any of the kids. But then something happened in preschool that struck a major chord in me. I liked to draw and I found that the other kids were drawn to my ability. They’d ask me to draw them pictures and I, so eager for acceptance, would of course consent. Soon I realized that despite whatever mean comments the kids could think up to say to me, they couldn’t touch my art. And that gave me something that I desperately needed – an identity.

As the school years progressed, the teasing got worse, but I got more involved in my artwork. Kids might have said things about my physique, but no one could really penetrate my made-up world in my drawings. If anything, they tried to copy them. By the end of elementary school, I had started drawing comic strips with a variety of animal characters and relationships. I considered these cartoons my real friends and would draw them constantly throughout the school day, especially when I felt alone. A project about careers I found from seventh grade reads, “I want to be a cartoonist so people will like me for my drawings.”

In addition to the social benefit, I added artistic flair to my homework assignments and it made them stand out from the rest. Without many friends, I had time to do every project when it was assigned and spent most of my time perfecting visual elements, picking out certain fonts, colors, lines, images, etc. Even little things such as math problem sets from sixth grade would be carefully written out (or rewritten, if my first version wasn’t pretty enough) and notated. By high school, I became known as the kid who always excelled at his work and went that extra mile with assignments to make them extra polished and [perhaps unnecessarily] detailed. It wasn’t because I really wanted to – rather, I was just using it as a medium to express the self I otherwise wasn’t able to. As designing became more important to my personal success, I also got involved in extracurriculars that extended my reach, allowing me to redesign and edit our school’s newspaper and literary magazine and create flyers and print material for other clubs and events.

And so, this personal obsession of mine to create, to make things a certain way, to put things in order, became almost paradoxically also a way for me to define myself and connect with people I seemed otherwise unable to. Praise for my work was taken personally as praise for me. In my mind, people may not have liked me for whatever reason, but they could connect with me through what I made, and that was just as good. It gave me extreme comfort to feel as though I did have some value to society and that following my own set of rules made everything more bearable.

This makes sense, of course. Feeling rather helpless and confused in the real relationships in my life, the only thing I really could control was my work. And, with so many different people seemingly telling me who I was and how I was supposed to act, it was imperative for my own sanity that I maintained some semblance of having an identity and I obsessed over developing one and promoting it. Fortunately, the importance of identity – of brand – is at the root of design. I had a concept and feeling that drove my actions and every decision I made in how I presented myself. For me, it was making order out of chaos. I created rules and frameworks that made sense of things, since so much in my life didn’t. I spent copious amounts of time analyzing people’s behavior and thoughts with strict objectivity, trying to figure out almost mathematical reasons why they did the things they did, so I could then change my actions and expectations to fit the paradigm. It was all I had to make myself feel comfortable with things. Otherwise, it would all be too chaotic.

As I’ve formalized my design expertise, learned techniques and about guiding principles and worked on all sorts of projects big and small – print layouts, architecture, graphic design, 3D models, animation, video production, web development, iPhone apps and much more – one thing has remained the same: an attention and true dedication to a story and a core value and vision for a design. I’ve found through my experience that most companies and projects often lack this central, most important component and without a driving force, a framework or a concept, it’s all too easy to end up with something sub-par. Design requires discipline and dedication.

As technology has grown more ubiquitous, we’ve had the ability to affect people’s daily lives and their relationships and I’ve found these challenges to be especially close to my heart. Although my specific skill-set, however diverse, may not be as perfected as others, I see the big picture and understand the need for a vision and the steps to create one and follow it. My passion is who I am, and this mindset has been so crucial to my own personal happiness that it’s become essential in my day-to-day job. Without it, everything easily feels chaotic again and I am deeply unsettled in my own well-being. What can I say – loving design is one thing, but another thing entirely is living it.