Design

Soothing, inspiring and thought-provoking words

Hugsa

Still from a video by creator <n>Preston Rakovsky</n>.

A still from <n>Michelangelo Antonioni</n>'s 1982 film, <n>Identificazione di una donna</n>.

A meme featuring <n>Rabbit</n>, <n>Tigger</n>, and <n>Winnie the Pooh</n> from a classic <n>Disney</n> animation.

A still from the 2022 film <n>Aftersun</n>, directed by <n>Charlotte Wells</n>.

A still from the 1990 film <n>Dreams</n>, directed by <n>Akira Kurosawa</n>.

A panel from the <n>Peanuts</n> comic strip by <n>Charles Schulz</n>.

I’m not searching for my other half because I’m not a half

For all this rational talk of principles and process, we also believe in the value of intuition. Being process-driven allows us to create work with fluidity and craft when we begin work on graphic elements. Intuition is also a vital part of choosing clients.

For all our skill, we cannot work miracles, and choosing to partner with people who create good products, services or artworks of their own means that the final outcome will be strong. When all's said and done, design is just an extension of a product or service. If there is no substance to our clients then we cannot invent it for them.

“Love isn’t just a matter of looking at someone, I think now, but also of looking with them, of facing what they face.”



Garth Greenwell, *What Belongs to You*

There’s no shortcut.

We interviewed a lot of people at Campsite it’s pretty obvious within a few minutes if someone notices/prioritizes visual design details, thinks about UX, considers accessibility, etc. From the pool of people who know and care about these things, then you focus on finding people who mostly “get it right” by default — i.e. have they already acquired enough taste and skills to not need much guidance and make things look good + feel right on the first or second pass.

If I remember correctly, our interview exercise was to design a multi-select dropdown menu. You could immediately tell if someone was a good fit if they started thinking about how the items in the menu should reorder based on the selection, how to support keyboard navigation and shortcuts, etc.

We also created a culture that rewarded + reinforced great design-oriented frontend engineering: everyone was hyper attuned to janky animations, dropped frames, misaligned elements, incorrect colors, etc. This “intuition” only comes from constantly sharing when things are wrong and describing *why* they’re wrong. You have to help people build an intuition for what “good” and “correct” looks like.

An illustration of <n>Winnie the Pooh</n> enjoying the changing weather.

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.

A still from the 2007 film <n>Into the Wild</n>, featuring <n>Emile Hirsch</n> as <n>Christopher McCandless</n>.

1\. Good design is innovative

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

2\. Good design makes a product useful

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

3\. Good design is aesthetic

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

4\. Good design makes a product understandable

It clarifies the products structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

5\. Good design is unobtrusive

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the users self-expression.

6\. Good design is honest

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

7\. Good design is long-lasting

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years - even in today's throwaway society.

8\. Good design is thorough down to the last detail

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

9\. Good design is environmentally friendly

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

10\. Good design is as little design as possible

Less, but better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to.

Don't leave me behind
Over one bad hour
Sometimes we come back empty handed
Like bees from plastic flowers

I make my ramen the way a friend taught me in eleventh grade. Every fall, I listen to a playlist made for me by a boy l drove across a border to hook up with. I eat sushi because a girl who won’t talk to me anymore made me try it, and Indian food because my best friend’s parents ordered for me before I knew what I liked. There are movies I love because someone I loved loved them first. I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever loved, even for a heartbeat.

So tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? What is it that do you plan to do with your one wild and precious death? Because you will die. And so will I. Question is: what kind of a death will it be? What will it mean for the rest of everything that will remain, once we’ve passed?

Everything you see here has a story. There’s a story attached to everything people do, that has to be told. Even in the case of objects I don’t like, there’s still a story. Why was it made that way? Is it just the material? It’s not comfortable, you can see just by looking at it. That’s the story behind the object. Only then does one grasp its meaning.

You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

A still from <n>Athina Rachel Tsangari</n>'s 2017 documentary <n>After Before</n>, featuring <n>Julie Delpy</n> and <n>Ethan Hawke</n>.

It's like running a bakery. If someone walks in asking for a hammer, you tell them to go to a hardware store and not start churning out hammers. 

There's beauty in clarity.

There’s nothing that’s more emotionally transformative than music

A quote from filmmaker <n>David Lynch</n> on his search for comfortable pants.