Someone sent me this quote yesterday:
“The details are not the details. They make the design.”
-Charles Eames
I think that’s a great way of putting it. It’s also one of the reasons I like the Patterns series by R.BIRD. In many ways it’s all about the details.
For example, take their latest report, Crunch, where they take a look crunchy things like cereal, crackers, chips, candy bars, etc.
They look at things like packaging texture, windows that reveal the product, illustration, colors, typography, mascots, and more. It’s a dissection of the details that make the design.
Other recent reports include energy drinks, children’s cold medicine, and women’s razors. Good stuff.
Dan Grossman
on 04 Jan 07I never considered a Krispy Kreme glazed donut “crunchy”.
Anonymous Coward
on 04 Jan 07Dan: “Krispy” elicits a response.
nicknack
on 04 Jan 07Another couple for you, widely used, often ignored, ‘Retail is detail’ and the classic ‘Mies van der Rohe, ‘God is in the details’, who also said it’s ‘finished when there’s nothing left to take away (or similar).
John Athayde
on 04 Jan 07This was always a big discussion in Architecture school. People would make a cool sketch, but then not follow through. The wall isn’t interesting, the architectural detail of the assembly where the wall hits the floor is where things start to get fun. Not saying “throw up crown molding” but a detail is what takes a sketch and makes it a design.
Paul
on 05 Jan 07Remember that the “Devil is in the detail” too … so, although details are important, they are only important at the right time.
JF
on 05 Jan 07Right you are Paul. From Getting Real: Ignore Details Early On.
BS&S
on 06 Jan 07to follow the structure; i think that “Ideas are the Requirements”.
I’ve been in so many meetings as of late with the requirements team who continue to ‘meet’ with me to get the requirements for the product ideas just so they can write a damn requirements doc to ensure that the product we’re already building matches the idea they can’t seem to comprehend. Then we ‘meet’ again after the first draft is written to review the document so that i can confirm that what they wrote down accurately reflects what I previously told them we were building.
the idea is the requirement and you therefore need the idea people to be the builder people so you can skip the requirement people who are just annoying people.
Keith Nicholas
on 08 Jan 07“Details are the design” is not the same as “The details make a design”
Details can make or break designs, but the design itself is often visibile through fuzzification of the details.
Details are the things that break bad abstractions, but once an abstraction has stood the “test” of the details the abstraction is often plainly visibile isolated from the details.
Matthew (@ YSAWD)
on 08 Jan 07RE: “Ignore the Details Early On”
37 Wrote – “There’s plenty of time to be a perfectionist. Just do it later.”
Amen. AMEN to that. I’ve spent an entire day on a design before only to find the tweaks that “made it” in all of sixty seconds.
David Martinez
on 09 Jan 07It’s all in the details my friends! It doesn’t matter if you are project managing or designing, any information you can capture about the problem you are solving will help you create detailed solutions which avoid trips to ‘left field’.
Here’s to the the right details at the right time. Paul and JF got it right above.
The wrong details can send down a path of no return… you have been warned!
This discussion is closed.