Author: nickgarrett

  • Young designers breaking in… a few words

    Are you confused about direction and where you are heading as a young designer?… I offer myself up as a reference point and sound board. 

    Working with the Australian Olympic team gave me a taste of how subtle the top line is.  The finest of tuning creates the medal or nothing. Tiny changes can have massive effects.

    … 5 years ago I would have said …if you do tomorrow what you did yesterday, you’ll get the same result. Today the result will be a sharp reversal.

    Improve and change if you want to make it better…and today especially, small incremental changes can have a disproportionately positive impact.  Working with quality makes each lesson rapid, frequent and indelible.

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  • Quotes on design – Steve Jobs, Eric Gill, Tom Dixon, Charles Eames, John Ruskin, Brian Reed, Milton Glaser

    Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

    —Steve Jobs, 2003

    “Letters are things, not pictures of things” – Eric Gill (1882-1940)

     

    “Users make their credibility-based decisions based upon the site’s overall visual appeal.”
    —Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, 2002

    Working with Giulio Cappellini (head of Cappellini, the Italian furniture maknufacturer) was a real eye opener. It was a window into a world where design was prized and respected in its capacity to grow industry.

    Tom Dixon

    Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?
     Steve Jobs quotes (American Entrepreneur Apple co-Founder, b.1955)

    Everything is designed. Few things are designed well

    – Brian Reed

    Only 2 problems with Ikea design – The big things fall apart and the small things fall off.

    Nick Garrett

    “A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand pictures.”
    —Ben Shneiderman, 2003

    Manufacturing is a beautiful world to the retail designer, and retail a paradise for the manufacturing designer.  They are identical because design intelligence, passion and hard work, makes either work.

    Nick Garrett

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