A 2012 interview of Shigeru Miyamoto on The Guardian:

Is there a difference between the kind of designer that started in art, like Miyamoto (who is ambidextrous – both Mario and Link were designed with his left-hand), to one who started in programming, I wonder?

“I don’t think there is a big difference,” he says. “Obviously people from artist or programmer backgrounds have to work together soon enough. So I think there are two key characteristics: a positive attitude towards new things, and someone who doesn’t easily give up in the face of problems or criticism. That’s what I look for in a new hire.”

There’s a part two of the interview, both are insightful.

P.S.: I got this link from Federico Vittici’s epic iOS 10 review.

Jason Santa Maria interviewed by The Great Discontent, great as always:

I’m sure that I’m romanticizing it as I’m getting older, but when you’re a kid, everything seems possible. When you think about doing something, the time between thinking about doing it and actually doing it is usually very brief. You say, “Hey, what if I do that?” and then you’re doing it. As an adult, you think, “I want to do this thing,” or, “I want to make something.” Then you start gathering resources and devising a plan, but then you get tired because you’re old and want to lay down. There’s something about that childhood idiocy that I often think back on and love.

Nothing is more destructive to good design than group thinking and collective decision making. Why? As I said, to most people good design is invisible. Group decisions focus on the visible, bad aspects of design.

Read the whole article, full of great advices on design and on life too.

From a 1984 issue of Domus Magazine, an interview with industrial designer Dieter Rams:

I know by experience that visions of the future and declarations of intent do not carry me forward. On the contrary, they impede the short steps by which I must proceed.

I’ve been posting a couple about Dieter Rams, the man is my hero, that is all.

(via Subtraction)

By 2008, SpaceX had launched three rockets. They all failed to make it into orbit. Shortly after the third failure, Elon Musk was interviewed by Wired Magazine’s Carl Hoffman:

Wired.com: At the end of the day you’re still zero for three; you have so far failed to put a rocket into orbit.

Musk: We haven’t gotten into orbit, true, but we’ve made considerable progress. If it’s an all-or-nothing proposition then we’ve failed. But it’s not all or nothing. We must get to orbit eventually, and we will. It might take us one, two or three more tries, but we will. We will make it work.

Wired.com: How do you maintain your optimism?

Musk: Do I sound optimistic?

Wired.com: Yeah, you always do.

Musk: Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work.

Yesterday, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station.

Kern and Burn interviewed Jim Coudal; don’t know him? Google him.

As curious people who love to learn, the idea of jumping into the deep end of the pool and learning about various businesses is very satisfying.

And:

He ended his talk with a quote from Dan Gilbert’s book, Stumbling on Happiness, and said, “The reason that most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals—not for the person we’re going to be when we reach them—we set our goals for the person we are when we set them.” It’s a great point. It encourages us to dream big, and think about what will truly make us happy. Jim, like many other design entrepreneurs, has taken his career into his own hands and now controls his work, and his “destiny.”

He’s one of my heroes alive today in design and also business field.

“I want to learn something. That’s the real pleasure, when you understand an idea or you answer a question. When I was a little boy I used to think you could get all the answers to all the questions. I thought that you could learn who God is and will he answer why he made me. You think you are going to get those answers but you don’t. (Laughs)”

— Francis Ford Coppola on what interests him, happiness, money, and creative purpose. (via curiositycounts)

Just now I can finally catching up reading The Great Discontent – it’s a collection of interviews with many great personalities of artists, designers, makers, and craftsmen. You should add them to your daily feeds – and reading Chris Glass’ interview, here’s a little gem of knowledge:

I dove into the design program at OSU, which at the time was a Bachelor of Science. Our professors explained why this denotation was unique: design was a science, a process that could be applied to anything. Essentially, you look at something, see what the problem is, craft solutions, test them, and launch. Then you do it all over again if you want to make it better. You can apply this to anything. I thought, I can do this, I dig this. It’s clinical.

I concur with his professors’ explanation of their denotation. It’s a science. I dig.

Ron Johnson was the former Senior VP of Retail Operations at Apple for the last 11 years, now he has taken a new role as the CEO for JC Penney.

Q. What ideals have you embraced from Steve Jobs?

A. The importance of doing everything you do to your very best. And that the journey is the reward. If you do things well one at a time, you end up in a really good place. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Control the things you can.

I can still vividly recall the excitement when my font first appeared on the screen. From that instant, I was hooked on designing type.

Quintet Family typeface, looks beautiful.