1. Tibor listened patiently to my ideas — there were lots of them — and then paused for a long time. “Well, yes, you could do some stuff like that,” he responded carefullly. “Or, we could do something like this. You could work out a good clear grid. We could edit all the images really carefully. Then you could do a really nice clean layout, perfect pace, perfect sequence. You know,” he added with a smile, “sort of like a Vignelli book. And then we could fuck it up a little.

    — 

    Michael Bierut

    Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mentor, Or, Why Modernist Designers Are Superior

  2. Finally, I’m both really busy on one hand, and secretly lazy on the other. What motivates me more than anything else is the conviction that my clients are depending on me: if we don’t come through for them, there’s no back up. The responsibility is mine and mine alone. Knowing that three or four other teams are toiling away at the same challenge, rather than whetting my competitive spirit, simply brings out the slacker in me.

    — 

    Michael Bierut

    The most reassuring bit of text I’ve read in a long time comes from this book, whose author is [not] coincidentally speaking Wednesday evening at Sam Fox.