DESIGN :Milton Glaser wisdom...

Note: taken from Milton Glaser

YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
Affection, trust and sharing some common ground is the only way good work can be achieved.

IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
‘Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age

SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. You have spent some time with this person, at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished.

PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
Professionalism means in most cases is limiting risks. What is desirable in our field (design - creative activity), is continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. Professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE
If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior.

An alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’

STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Most good designers have developed a vocabulary, a form that is their own. It is one of the ways that they distinguish themselves from their peers, and establish their identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act.

HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.

DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Everyone always talks about confidence and believing in what you do. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins.

SOLVING THE PROBLEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING RIGHT.
Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, in our work the issue is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know when compromise is appropriate. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.

The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life.