Design

It's so sad to look for something and it's not there. It's bad design.

As opposed to good design, which has something that makes you want to look at it and, in a consumer culture, something that makes you want to use whatever it is you're looking at.

Design is having power over something.

It's the totalitarian instinct exercized over an object (something) to make an object either useful or beautiful or both.

I explained this to a young designer who had created the packaging for a new line of premium Japanese sake. Her design was so striking I wanted to eat it. However, it was extremely difficult to get the bottle she'd designed out of the box she'd designed. I told her that her design, no matter how beautiful, was making it hard on the consumer and that there might be consequences. English was her second language, but she seemed to understand.

Good design is a road and a road is a good design. The Roman's were good roadbuilders and that capability went a long way toward establishing an empire. "Transportation is civilization," said Rudyard Kipling.

I'm going to stop thinking so much about the present and start thinking more about the past, which, if thought through, might guide me more accurately to the future.