Moses Ting's inspiration and design notebook.
In Made You Look, one of Stefan Sagmeister’s life goals is to touch somebody’s heard with graphic design. He attempts to come up with a list of qualities that a given design must have in order to make that happen (no guarantees though):
- New Perspective - They have to have the ability to make me see things in a new way.
- Trigger of Memories - Somehow they remind me of an experience, maybe of my childhood.
- Passion and Guts - They show passion and commitment.
- Surprise - There is an element of unexpectedness.
- Virtuosity - There is a virtuosity of craft or technique—or simply just the astonishment that somebody can be so good at something.
- Beauty - And then there is beauty or whatever I see as beauty.
I must say, it’s a pretty darn good list. There’s so much designs out there, but most of them will only meet only 2 or 3 of the above. It’s really really difficult to achieve all 6 goals with one single design piece.
Stefan also adds one last bit of advice which I agree with readily. He says:
I guess the list has the same problem as all those “How do I make other people love me?” books. If I want to touch somebody’s heart with a piece of design, it has to come from my heart, it has to be true and sincere. Mere list-following won’t do.
