Comments on: What 50 pounds of clay can teach you about design

By: house music

house music — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:10:19 +0000

interesting to use poterry as an outlet, and might serve well for road blocks.

congrats on 37 signals, thats huge!

By: Marc Goodman

Marc Goodman — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:32:43 +0000

Actually, reminds me of a great scene from a great Novel by Ayn Rand - "The Fountainhead"

This book is brilliant. It talks about this guy (Howard Roark) who's an architect and how he refuses to do what everyone else wants him to do because he has his own ideals.

Anyways, he always comes up with buildings that are "perfect" as stated by all his clients and fans. So one day a close friend of his asks him: "How do you do it Roark? How do you produce such masterpieces? Do you ever do anything that is bad?"

Roark replies: "I'm sure I produce more bad work than any other architect around, the difference is that my bad work ends up in my trash-bin, while others' end up being built."

By: Rick - Job Search Tips

Rick - Job Search Tips — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:05:13 +0000

I love the story. It reminds me of my favorite Mark Twain quote:

"Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection"

Something to keep in mind whenever we get bogged down by fear and paralyzed from moving forward.

By: Simon Cition

Simon Cition — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 06:08:02 +0000

Good advice, so long as one ends up delivering ‘quality’. Also, in reality the opportunity for ‘quantity’ exists in prototyping and refactoring – not deliverables. No doubt we have all (unfortunately) experienced ‘quantity’ being delivered.

By: Paul Velocity

Paul Velocity — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:09:19 +0000

Fantastic post. I am a “perfectionist” myself and often I find it hard to let go a little and experiment. I will use your words to inspire me to increase my workload turnover and be less obsessive about my work. Thanks!

By: Shoulung

Shoulung — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:16:23 +0000

No, SKippy, the real lesson is that quality is only derived through quantity:

There was once a king who loved the graceful curves of the rooster. He asked the court artist to paint a picture of a rooster for him. For one year he waited, and still this order was not fulfilled. In a rage, he stomped to the artist's studio and demanded to see the artist.

Quickly the artist brought out paper, paint, and brush. In five minutes a perfect picture of a rooster emerged from his skillful brush. The king turned purple with anger, saying, "If you can paint a perfect picture of a rooster in five minutes, why did you keep me waiting for over a year?"

"Come with me," begged the artist. He led the king to his storage room. Paper was piled from the floor to the ceiling. On every sheet was a painting of a rooster.

"Your Majesty," explained the artist, "it took me more than a year to learn how to paint a perfect rooster in five minutes."

Isabelle C. Chang Tales from Old China, 1969

By: skippy

skippy — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:30:50 +0000

The real lesson is that some teachers are narcissistic jerks.

By: Paul Foster

Paul Foster — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:49:03 +0000

Excellent and thought provoking. It does not just apply to design, but also to everything in life.

I will be sharing this with friends and colleagues.

By: Nick Caldwell

Nick Caldwell — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 02:15:15 +0000

Here’s why I don’t like parables: the story’s ceramics teacher must have known this would be a likely outcome. The group that’s been put in the “quality” group have no real chace of gaining a high mark in that class. That’s extremely bad pedagogy. It’s grounds for an appeal at the very least.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:46:27 +0000

Fantastic post Chanpory. I’ll file this in the “quality” folder in my bookmarks.