this was so darn good and insightful, I had to post it to my blog to remind myself!
Michael McDonough's Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
The Architect's Newspaper is my new favorite design publication. It's a 16-page tabloid that comes out about twice a month. It's literate and timely, a fast-paced collection of news, reviews and opinion from voices as various as Michael Sorkin, Peter Slatin and Craig Konyk, all beautifully designed (in two ruthlessly efficient colors) by Martin Perrin. And, best of all, it has a gossip column.
Last month, they published a piece by Michael McDonough, the accomplished New York-based architect, writer and teacher, called "The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School." I read lots of these kinds of things (and even written a few myself), but I found McDonough's not just entertaining but actually quite useful, and valid for nearly any kind of design discipline. He has graciously given us permission to reprint it here at Design Observer.
The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
by Michael McDonough
1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
Talent
is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard
work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline
and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether
it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very
talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you
think I am wrong, just look around.
2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
Only
5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is
what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most
of the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking,
negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If
you don't learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of
your profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will
never succeed.
3. If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
You
hear a lot about details, from "Don't sweat the details" to "God is in
the details." Both are true, but with a very important explanation:
hierarchy. You must decide what is important, and then attend to it
first and foremost. Everything is important, yes. But not everything is
equally important. A very successful real estate person taught me this.
He told me, "Watch King Rat. You'll get it."
4. Don't over-think a problem.
One
time when I was in graduate school, the late, great Steven Izenour said
to me, after only a week or so into a ten-week problem, "OK, you solved
it. Now draw it up." Every other critic I ever had always tried to
complicate and prolong a problem when, in fact, it had already been
solved. Designers are obsessive by nature. This was a revelation.
Sometimes you just hit it. The thing is done. Move on.
5. Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
In
design this means "draw what you know." Start by putting down what you
already know and already understand. If you are designing a chair, for
example, you know that humans are of predictable height. The seat
height, the angle of repose, and the loading requirements can at least
be approximated. So draw them. Most students panic when faced with
something they do not know and cannot control. Forget about it. Begin
at the beginning. Then work on each unknown, solving and removing them
one at a time. It is the most important rule of design. In Zen it is
expressed as "Be where you are." It works.
6. Don't forget your goal.
Definition
of a fanatic: Someone who redoubles his effort after forgetting his
goal. Students and young designers often approach a problem with
insight and brilliance, and subsequently let it slip away in confusion,
fear and wasted effort. They forget their goals, and make up new ones
as they go along. Original thought is a kind of gift from the gods.
Artists know this. "Hold the moment," they say. "Honor it." Get your
idea down on a slip of paper and tape it up in front of you.
7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
Overconfidence
is as bad as no confidence. Be humble in approaching problems. Realize
and accept your ignorance, then work diligently to educate yourself out
of it. Ask questions. Power - the power to create things and impose
them on the world - is a privilege. Do not abuse it, do not
underestimate its difficulty, or it will come around and bite you on
the ass. The great Karmic wheel, however slowly, turns.
8. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
The
world is not set up to facilitate the best any more than it is set up
to facilitate the worst. It doesn't depend on brilliance or innovation
because if it did, the system would be unpredictable. It requires
averages and predictables. So, good deeds and brilliant ideas go
against the grain of the social contract almost by definition. They
will be challenged and will require enormous effort to succeed. Most
fail. Expect to work hard, expect to fail a few times, and expect to be
rejected. Our work is like martial arts or military strategy: Never
underestimate your opponent. If you believe in excellence, your
opponent will pretty much be everything.
9. It all comes down to output.
No
matter how cool your computer rendering is, no matter how brilliant
your essay is, no matter how fabulous your whatever is, if you can't
output it, distribute it, and make it known, it basically doesn't
exist. Orient yourself to output. Schedule output. Output, output,
output. Show Me The Output.
10. The rest of the world counts.
If
you hope to accomplish anything, you will inevitably need all of the
people you hated in high school. I once attended a very prestigious
design school where the idea was "If you are here, you are so
important, the rest of the world doesn't count." Not a single person
from that school that I know of has ever been really successful outside
of school. In fact, most are the kind of mid-level management drones
and hacks they so despised as students. A suit does not make you a
genius. No matter how good your design is, somebody has to construct or
manufacture it. Somebody has to insure it. Somebody has to buy it.
Respect those people. You need them. Big time.
