David Carson on Design, Discovery and Humor
published: May 4th, 2009
The following is a great TED talk from David Carson. David is a typographer running a successful magazine which explores the possibilities of text on a page. In his talk, David makes some useful points about design but also provides some other intriguing insights worth taking note of.
I like what he said about what will be next, just near the end of the presentation. Quoting:
What’s next? What’s next is going to be people. As we get more technically driven the importance of people becomes more than as ever seen before. You have to utilize who you are and your work. Nobody else can do that. Nobody else can pull from your background, your parents, your upbringing, your whole life experience. If you allow that to happen, it is really the only way to do some unique work and you are going to enjoy the work a lot more as well.
and a bit further he says:
For the most part they are not real-life threatening (talking about jobs). Why not experiment? Why not have some fun? Why not put some of yourself into the work… and when I was teaching I used to always ask the students what is the definition of a good job… and as a teacher you have to give them all the answers, you have to give them the correct answer… and the best one I’ve heard is… and I am sure that some of you have heard this… the definition of a good job is that if you can afford to, if money wasn’t an issue, would you be doing that same work? And if you would then you have a great job. If you wouldn’t, what the heck are you doing…
…and with that completes another great TED talk.
