Hasta La Ideas

Years ago I was an ID student slaving away after hours in the junior design studio at Pratt Institute. The nightly soundtrack was Guns ‘N Roses punctuated by various students swearing when the Dremel went too far, you over-tightened something and broke it, or gravity and a Snapple ruined your marker rendering. “I wish I had Command-Z in real life,” I remember my buddy Randy saying.

If you’re a CAD jockey and you screw something up, provided they haven’t cut steel from your drawings yet, it’s a simple matter to fix. Those of us that work with our hands building stuff know a very different experience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve mis-divided a fraction and cut wood too short, drilled holes in the wrong side, or spent hours assembling something before realizing I forgot to install that little part that goes right in the middle.

I came across an essay called “Risk” by Texas-based furniture designer Mark Love that perfectly describes the situation many of us in the latter category have found ourselves in:

(more…)