In this excerpt from “A Pattern Language,” architect Christopher Alexander explains that plans of buildings should be loose and fluid so they can adapt easily.

Along the way, he compares the work of a fifty-year-old carpenter with the work of a novice. The difference: The experienced craftsman plans less because he has learned to do things in a way that lets him make small mistakes. This gives his work “unconcerned simplicity.”

Why does the principle of gradual stiffening seem so sensible as a process of building?

To begin with, such a structure allows the actual building process to be a creative act. It allows the building to be built up gradually. Members can be moved around before they are firmly in place. All those detailed design decisions which can never be worked out in advance on paper, can be made during the building process. And it allows you to see the space in three dimensions as a whole, each step of the way, as more material is added…

The essence of this process is very fundamental indeed. We may understand it best by comparing the work of a fifty-year-old carpenter with the work of a novice. The experienced carpenter keeps going. He doesn’t have to keep stopping, because every action he performs, is calculated in such a way that some later action can put it right to the extent that it is imperfect now. What is critical here, is the sequence of events. The carpenter never takes a step which he cannot correct later; so he can keep working, confidently, steadily.

The novice by comparison, spends a great deal of his time trying to figure out what to do. He does this essentially because he knows that an action he takes now may cause unretractable problems a little further down the line; and if he is not careful, he will find himself with a joint that requires the shortening of some crucial member – at a stage when it is too late to shorten that member. The fear of these kinds of mistakes forces him to spend hours trying to figure ahead: and it forces him to work as far as possible to exact drawings because they will guarantee that he avoids these kinds of mistakes.

The difference between the novice and the master is simply that the novice has not learnt, yet, how to do things in such a way that he can afford to make small mistakes. The master knows that the sequence of his actions will always allow him to cover his mistakes a little further down the line. It is this simple but essential knowledge which gives the work of a master carpenter its wonderful, smooth, relaxed, and almost unconcerned simplicity.

Related
An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design
Getting Real: Built-in seats in “A Pattern Language” [SvN]

“No graphic in human history has saved so many lives in Africa and Asia,” says NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof about an infographic in a ‘97 Times article that spurred Bill and Melinda Gates to take action on public health.

in september i traveled with bill gates to africa to look at his work fighting aids there. while setting the trip up, it emerged that his initial interest in giving pots of money to fight disease had arisen after he and melinda read a two-part series of articles i did on third world disease in January 1997. until then, their plan had been to give money mainly to get countries wired and full of computers.

bill and melinda recently reread those pieces, and said that it was the second piece in the series, about bad water and diarrhea killing millions of kids a year, that really got them thinking of public health. Great! I was really proud of this impact that my worldwide reporting and 3,500-word article had had. But then bill confessed that actually it wasn’t the article itself that had grabbed him so much—it was the graphic. It was just a two column, inside graphic, very simple, listing third world health problems and how many people they kill. but he remembered it after all those years and said that it was the single thing that got him redirected toward public health.

No graphic in human history has saved so many lives in africa and asia.

The piece says that Jim Perry, a veteran graphics editor, produced the chart. Too bad the actual graphic isn’t shown though. It’d be interesting to see. Update: The chart is below (source).

Really nice question-based flow to get what you need at the NIVEA Logo Download Finder.

Newsweek sliders
Rob Alan writes:

The new Newsweek.com is showing some slider love, such as this one for font size:

and this one (bottom) for the Top Ten range:

“Yes to All”
Scott Hughes writes:

I saw the enclosed dialogue box on a colleague’s PC and thought that you might find it amusing.

This obituary of Robert Rauschenberg contains some great quotes from the artist…

An improvisatory process was what mattered most to him:

Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

Embracing change is essential:

John Cage said that fear in life is the fear of change. If I may add to that: nothing can avoid changing. It’s the only thing you can count on. Because life doesn’t have any other possibility, everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.

Boredom and understanding are the same thing:

I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably — another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.

Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else’s aesthetics. I think you’re born an artist or not. I couldn’t have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.

The whole 37signals thing gathered in Chicago for a pow wow last week. How do we start a meeting? By celebrating.

No confetti or streamers. Just a recap of everything we’ve accomplished since we met last (we hold full-team meetings every few months). We tick off the accomplishments and let the champions of each one explain what happened and what was learnt. Plus, they get to bask in a bit of glory for (presumably) a job well done.

It’s easy for businesses to get caught up with looking forward all the time. Or to focus on problem areas. But it’s also smart to take a few minutes to look in the rearview mirror and review how far you’ve come. Celebrate your progress. Consider it morale fuel.

“Designing is not a profession but an attitude” is an excerpt from László Moholy-Nagy’s 1947 book “Vision in Motion.”

The designer must see the periphery as well as the core, the immediate and the ultimate, at least in the biological sense. He must anchor his special job in the complex whole. The designer must be trained not only in the use of materials and various skills, but also in appreciation of organic functions and planning. He must know that design is indivisible, that the internal and external characteristics of a dish, a chair, a table, a machine, painting, sculpture are not to be separated…

There is design in organization of emotional experiences, in family life, in labor relations, in city planning, in working together as civilized human beings. Ultimately all problems of design merge into one great problem: ‘design for life’.

We often put “designers” and “creatives” in special silos. But when you look at it from this “design for life” perspective, everyone is designing: writers, programmers, managers, CEOs, HR departments, parents, etc. Design and creativity don’t belong exclusively to people who use Photoshop.

Related: László Moholy-Nagy’s visual representation of Finnegan’s Wake

More ammunition for why you should fire the workaholics: They don’t actually get more done.

Q: Do workaholics accomplish more than people who work fewer hours?

A: Often, they don’t. That is because, as perfectionists, they may become so fixated on inconsequential details that they find it hard to move on to the next task, [Psychiatrist Bryan] Robinson said.

As Gayle Porter [a professor who has studied workaholism] put it: “They’re not looking for ways to be more efficient; they’re just looking for ways to always have more work to do.”

Good advice for anyone who wants to be more efficient: When you’re sweating for hours over a tiny detail, stop and ask yourself, “Is this really worth the amount of time I’m spending on it?” If not, declare “good enough” and move on.

Also mentioned in the piece: Companies that believe they’re benefiting from someone’s long hours should think again…

Most companies think that they are benefiting from a workaholic’s long hours, even if it is at the worker’s expense, Porter said. In fact, she said, workaholism can harm the company as well as the worker…

The person may look like a hero, coming in to solve crisis after crisis, when in fact the crises could have been avoided. Sometimes, the workaholic may have unwittingly created the problems to provide the endless thrill of more work.

Sometimes the real hero is already home, because he/she figured out a quicker way to get to “done.”

Facebook
Sean Iams writes:

Very cool feature on Facebook: When you’re typing a message, and you happen to include a valid link (i.e. http://www.37signals.com) in the body, Facebook automatically looks up the site and pulls back a description and a list of images that help explain the site. You then have the option to send the message with the image + description as an attachment or send the message without any attachment. It drastically clarifies the message with no additional effort whatsoever. Quick, simple, and easy :)

MyPunchBowl
Matt Douglas at MyPunchBowl writes:

Thought you would be interested in this “pure design” feature. On MyPunchbowl.com (party planning site), users choose a party theme. Like most sites, you can choose by category and search by terms.

However, MyPunchbowl also has the ability to search by color—so if you’re looking for a red based theme, you can find it easily. You know what? Men seem to not care about this feature, but female users LOVE IT.

VC isn’t the only way. Ronnie Angerer writes in with a great example of a site that asked its community for small donations instead of seeking an investor:

My wife is a part of the online knitting and crochet community, Ravelry. She mentioned this weekend that they had asked their members for donations to support infrastructure growth and enhancements to the community. In the blog post about the “Ravelraiser” they write:

“In 3 weeks, 3,457 Ravelers gave donated a total of $71,000 to Ravelry. Not only did we receive an amazing financial boost, we also received a flood of love. About 800 people wrote up really wonderful and amazing notes in the 10 Lousy Bucks group’s “Why I gave” thread.

I really liked that they approached their happy user community for donations (and got them) rather than looking for VC or other funding. Thought you might be interested.

Thanks for sharing Ronnie. According to the post, Ravelry is using the money to pay off all their startup debt, buy an additional server, buy carbon offsets “so that we’re even (actually, a little ahead) with the Earth as well as our bank,” and throw more knitting/crochet/and fiber events.

Good news for the site and good news for its audience too. (There are lots of “this community is sooo worth every penny”-type comments at the post.) When you’re providing a service that people are that enthusiastic for, it’s ok to ask for something in return. That’s what makes something sustainable.

Plus, let’s remember that $70k can go a long way. You don’t need to ask for hundreds of thousands (or more) if you don’t actually need it. Especially if that means giving up equity in your company.

Related: Pyra asked customers for $5-10 donations back in 2001: “Within a few hours, 191 users had donated $3,200 to a special PayPal account.”

Paint Chips tells the story of the Esquire, a Brooklyn apartment building that decided each floor would be allowed to choose the exterior colors of their doors, as well as each door’s jambs, lintel and sill.

The result? A classic tale of too many cooks in the kitchen. Years have passed and there’s still no agreement. Check out these quotes from different residents of the building:

“It really is a conflict of too many creative people.”

“It’s like the Bloods and the Crips—except it’s the Teals and the Dark Charcoals.”

“Most people on this floor are somehow involved in the visual arts, so everyone has a feeling about color, you know, one way or the other.”

“It was like the Civil War—brother against brother. I was in the charcoal camp, the side of righteousness.”

“Someone who shall remain nameless looked at me and said that I had to go along with whatever the majority votes, because it’s a democracy. I said, ‘No, I don’t think so. That’s tyranny of the majority.’”

One resident announced that the turquoise color another had selected for her trim made her nauseated leading to this comment: “That’s not nice. Say ‘It’s not to my taste,’ not ‘It makes me sick.’ That’s intolerance, which is the basis of oppression and bigotry.”

“Yeah, there’s been tension. But if more than four eyes roll at once, a community is forming. I think the root of the problem is resistance to change. As an earnest attempt at micro-democracy, the process was educational and entertaining. But at a point, I was ready for a benign dictatorship. If the board had just sent paint crews to do the job, people would have been thrilled with or gawked at the new coat of paint. I bet that’s how it works in the Gretsch building.”

“We live in a hyper design age, where we are all raging aesthetes.”

When it comes to designing something, a benevolent dictator is sometimes a welcome alternative to the chaos of democracy.