Design Is Everything

Design is everything. it's making your life how you want it. It's saying, "this can be better, and I'm going to make it so". Design is intention, it's will, and it's expression. It's deciding what you want, and working to make it happen.

I design my life. I design my diet, my schedule, I decide how I want certain things to be. I experiment. If a certain exercise routine isn't working, or is hurting my back unnecessarily, I review what's going wrong, I see the patterns, and I make a change. That's design.

Design is noticing and allowing. it's controlling your life, it's taking responsibility, it's responding to what's not working and making it work, not by force of will, but by nudging the non-compliant into a better direction.

Sometimes design looks like a complete overhaul - let's move to another town. sometimes it's minor, let's buy a new car, change our dinner time, our family vacation routine. Design is what's already happening, whether you know it or not, and it's about taking a conscious part in it.

When I was younger I smoked, and on long road trips I noticed that I held my cigarette in the same place, resting against my right leg, steering with the other hand. sometimes I would zone out a little bit on a song, driving along, and I would accidentally burn a hold in my pants. After a while -- this was in my early 20's, and didn't happen very often, but often enough to notice a pattern, I realized I had two or three pairs of pants with burn holes in the same spot.

Those were the thrift store days, so I wasn't very concerned, but it gave me an idea. if I could design my own pants, they would have a built-in ashtray -- this was when cars came with ashtrays built into the dashboard. I would make a small round ash try, very light, maybe of tin or copper or aluminum, and have it sewn in the right leg of the pants right where my hand rested in between puffs.

This ashtray-pant idea is a little silly, I'll give you that, but it was one of my first ideas when I realized design is something we can all do. I wasn't very good at sewing at the time, and I had no fashion design technical skills, so I wasn't about to do this myself, but it gave me something to think about as I drove over the plains, through the straight desert roads with the sun shimmering off the tarmacadam.

The ashtray-pant wouldn't sell, but that's not a concern. I didn't need GAP to get on board with this idea and make thousands of them. I didn't need a more expensive outlet to make them so I could get one in an arm length that put the ashtray in the right spot, I just needed one pair. Or, one pattern, so I could have them made once, maybe in a couple of colors. I liked wearing corduroy at the time, but I'm not sure it would work in denim, that's part of the design process.

These kinds of ideas don't need to be expensive, only practical. And when they work, practically speaking, they can become beautiful. This is the nature of design, to make what you need that doesn't exist, except in your mind. and to dream of what doesn't exist, that you want to exist, so you can bring it out of your mind and into reality.