Polish: the art of, not the country
By Simone Magurno, Creative Director
While working on some of our latest projects, we started looking more closely at how the workflow between our internal departments affects the quality of our work. In these conversations, there was a term which was used frequently. The word was ‘polish’.
Whenever a word gets thrown around a lot, it tends to lose some of its original meaning. This write up originates as an attempt to help our departments align on what polish means and why it should be important to us.
Without looking for a universal truth we’ll start by saying that in most cases, polish is the untold. It's something that neither the client or your boss is going to necessarily ask you for out loud, but a measure your work will be judged by when you deliver a project.
It's a level of quality and attention to detail which is the result of the sum of different design and development aspects, some measurable, some less, which give the spectator a heightened perception of the artifact he’s experiencing. It can be quiet and precise or bold and exuberant, just as your own character, polish is your personal signature on something that you’ve created with pride.
Now, to anybody who loves their craft, polish is just the synonym of being a good practitioner of their discipline in the first place. And as we all know, good work is reinforced by good habits and is an enemy of the clock. That’s why it is important to understand that polish does not exist as a discrete phase at the end of the project, but it does make up the project itself.
Time is a cruel mistress, but if you’re diligent you can make up for it with a little bit of structure and planning. When approaching an assignment, there’s always a certain amount of ground work which needs to be completed before the real work begins. This is where having frameworks to reference in order to solve common tasks can allow designers and developers to do a high amount of the work in a very short amount of time.
The diligent designer will then have the time to focus on creating moments of delight and surprise, opportunities to experiment, and the ability to iterate on his solutions.
Experience will also serve as a guide to assign priorities and solve problems quickly, allowing to focus on satisfactory work, because possibly what one feels when they see a beautiful piece of work is just the same joy of the person who has created it.
