My Perfectly Ugly and Incomplete Ideas

At the Global Jam, a service design challenge this past weekend, the hosts warned the contestants “don’t marry your ideas”.

Good design generally means you’ve had some honest discussion; perhaps with an impartial critic who could care less about your feelings, but does care deeply about your design’s purpose. If you are cringing at the mere notion of “could care less about your feelings” than you already are falling into the “I married my design” trap.

I am guessing that the ability to give and receive a critique is plummeting over time with the acceleration of tools that make work seem polished and complete. You type your words, build your slides, try a few things….and next thing you know you’re the on the pulpit preaching the gospel. If this is you (and this most certainly is sometimes me), we must master the skills of detachment. And we must learn how to divorce our ideas as soon as possible… if not for better design, than at least for personal self worth. You are not your ideas…

Try chanting this before your next critique: “I am beautiful and complete, my ideas may not be.”