Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

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To be an industrial designers you have to be three people at the same time.

You have to be the crazy person.

Then you have to be the person who reviews those crazy ideas and says, “no, not that, and not that either”.

The third person has to be the observer who stands off to the side and managers that process.

If you fall in love with what you’re doing too soon in the process, you’re eliminating all the chances to come up with a different variation of the idea. There has to be a disinterested observer of the process.

You have to recognize your ego structure, and you have to be very humble and know that you should be sort of scared each time you start something new because it could go horribly awry.

~ Syd Mead, from a Concept Design interview in Axis Magazine, 6 June 2008, Vol. 133 (Note: I’ve broken down the original quote into paragraphs for a better read)

This fantastic quote from, Futurist and Industrial Designer, Syd Mead describes the mental challenges Industrial Designers need to take when they work through a design. It’s not easy having multiple personalties eh?