How design works

Design is a tricky thing.

It’s like an artist fighting with the muse. We feel it in our bones, sense it in our minds, but when we try to bring concrete reality to vague concepts the perfect becomes imperfect, the sublime banal.

And yet, sometimes, through the misty unknown of that space, where we’re trying to wrangle with our heads and the imprecise tools of our trade, we see tiny glimmers of something.

They’re blurry, unclear, and not yet shaped in the way we’d hoped. But wrestle with them long enough, protect them through their infancy and share them when ready, and maybe—just maybe—something will emerge worthy of all the fatigue, sweat, and RSI. Maybe it will be worth it.

This is why designers stay at it, keep fighting, keep creating. They want to get that thing in their head onto the page, they want to see the delight in the faces of others knowing that the vague shapes have become reality.

Also, sometimes it’s just an app and we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.