The best snorkeling experience I’ve ever had was off a coast in the central Philippines. Most of the memory has blurred together: warm sun, salty air, the sound of my friends' laughter echoing off the boat. What I remember vividly, with photographic precision, are the neon blue and purple starfish. Colors that seem like they couldn’t possibly exist in nature, yet they do.
If design didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, snowflakes would be ugly. Leaves wouldn’t turn red and gold in the Fall. Spring would arrive unannounced by bright yellow daffodils. And a world underwater that we rarely experience in the day-to-day would be bland and colorless.
People have a right to live fully, not just merely. Good design adds to the fullness of life. The fullness, ironically, allows for margin. Margin empowers people to dream big, enabling them to do things that change the world.
Sweat the details. The details go beyond ourselves.
Originally published October 2014
