Hasta La Ideas

At a previous design gig, I had a co-worker who’d derisively refer to our boss—behind his back, naturally—as “The Millimeter.” Because whenever we’d submit renderings to him for approval, he’d invariably say “Looks good, but can you move this line just a millimeter to the [left/right]?” He couldn’t help himself; he’d have said it to a child drawing a rectangle or to Michelangelo carving David.

Just as industrial designers pore over millimeters, radii and materials, sound designers obsess about details laypeople will probably never notice. Take, for example, the sound that you hear when getting an incoming video call on Facebook:

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