Read. Read more. Read even more.

And talk. And explore. And meet new people. Or even just old ones. Chance favors the connected mind. And good design comes from a connected mind.

Growing up, the quote that stood out most to me, was from one of my old textbooks — I don’t remember now if it was a science or history book but I do remember the quote:

If I have seen further, its is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Sir Isaac Newton (Letter from Sir Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke)

Its from one of the letters Isaac Newton wrote in 1675. It is true today as it was then. It is the lesson of the human civilization, and the lesson of progress. The ability to share and learn from experiences, our own and those not our own, has been fundamental to our development as a species. And I believe it to be fundamental to creating anything, including the design for the next cool new product, app or website.

I’m starting out trying to build a skill in design, and as I read the all the ‘recommended’ literature on the topic — I realize the most powerful ideas are ideas that have appeared over and over again in history. We rediscover them in a new context every time a new area or field opens up. Don Norman, in his book The Design of Everyday Things (the book every designer has on his or her bookshelf,) talks about how designers need to create ‘signifiers’ that make the capabilities of the object/product clear — and how good designers can make these ‘signifiers’ natural, integrated, readily absorbed, almost invisible. It seemed a deja-vu. The idea lit up in my head, almost like a forgotten memory. I had seen that concept before. Where? It took me a while, but I tracked it down.

‘The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.’ Mark Weiser, 1991 “The Computer for the 21st Century”

Mark Weiser, was a visionary, a computer scientist at Xerox Parc, who predicted so many things we take for granted today, and there are some he predicted that our children will take for granted as they grow. His article in the Scientific American, written 25 years ago for fellow computer scientists developing new technology is just as valuable as a design reference. We learn by standing on the shoulders of giants.

The Population Reference Bureau estimates that there have been 108 billion humans that have ever been born on earth. That’s 108 billion, thinking, creative, inventive souls. What is the possibility that there is an idea there that no one else has ever thought of? What is more probable is that your problem has been thought about, perhaps in a different context, by someone, somewhere. So read. And go out, meet, talk, share ideas. You will make great design.