If in Doubt, Quote!

Not at all the same thing as “thought foxes“, but an intriguing moniker nonetheless.

I am reading The Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd, basically at the behest of Jeffrey Zeldman, who unfailingly gives good suggestions on what to read (and what to see, and to link to).

I found the ending disappointing, but the observations on design and design-school instruction are priceless.

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.

—Eliel Saarinen,
quoted by his son Eero,
in Time magazine, June 2, 1977

…she’s quotable:

“Writing about design is like dancing about architecture.”

–Jennifer Ziegler, author of Alpha Dog
and How Not to Be Popular.

I don’t have an idea for a play until after I’ve finished writing it. I write first, and come up with what it’s about later. My technique could be compared to having a large canvas and coming in every day and putting a dot on it somewhere, and after several years — literally — I begin to say, ‘That reminds me of an elephant, so I think I’ll make it one.’

Today in Salon, Cary Tennis answers a plea from a wannabe writer with some plain truths:

…[J]ust don’t be on your high horse. It’s not like they’re handing out rewards for talent. It’s more like mud wrestling.