You’re reading Signal v. Noise, a publication about the web by Basecamp since 1999. Happy !
art, literature, math, tech.
Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.
Endlessly and persistently. That is the only difference between an artist and a shoemaker. When the shoemaker has done his pair of boots, it is over, he forgets about them. When an artist finishes a piece of work, it is not done. It is just another step. All the steps dovetail one into the other.
What I cannot create, I do not understand.
They can communicate:
As an aside: keep in mind that these images will be seen outside of the App Store too, such as in Twitter cards…
What’s cool about these screenshots? They’re interesting—i.e. not boring lists! They communicate explicity, often using words. It’s cool seeing the apps from the perspective of being on a phone and in someone’s hand. They use colors outside of the typical app color pallete. They convince me that these apps will do the job. Most important, they convince me that the makers of these apps care.
The apps listed above, and other good examples:
You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.
And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.
Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.
And it’s that process that is the magic.
I always thought that inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.