It’s no secret that I love books. A few years ago, I confessed to abiliophobia, the fear of being without a book or at least something to read. (Try telling your doctor about your affliction and see what happens.) There’s little more concerning to me than being stuck somewhere with nothing to read.
Fortunately for me, my career has me covered. Whether visiting a library, a book warehouse, an author conference, a publisher, a bookstore or my home, I always have several within reach.
Like most of us, a book cover captures my interest. I often pause and peruse books simply based on the graphic design.
Do you ever buy a book because you are attracted to its cover? That’s the goal of every designer: to influence that moment and make you take action. Pick me up!
Each year, I make a list of the best book covers. And, it’s not only fun, did you know that book covers also offer valuable leadership and goal setting lessons? (Click here to read more.)
If you want to compare this year’s list with previous years:
You may think about one of those designer shows on TV that completely redecorates a living space. Perhaps you think of designing consumer products with packaging that enhances a brand. I think of Steve Jobs and his famous quote: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs
Design isn’t just for products. It’s also for lives. Designing a life that serves others is a worthy goal.
And, if something isn’t serving us well, we can redesign it and everything changes.
BJ Miller has a unique perspective on redesign that caught my attention. He wants to redesign dying. As a palliative care physician and long term patient, his ideas are both personal and professional. His story is compelling. While climbing a commuter train with some buddies in college, he was electrocuted, severely burned, and lost three limbs. Today, he specializes in end-of-life care at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. His purpose is to serve others by helping them die with dignity and grace, with no regrets or undue suffering.
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“Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem.” –John Maeda
Hospitals were not designed as a place to live and die. Healthcare providers mean well, but when someone dies in a sterile hospital setting among the beeping of the background noise and the bright fluorescent lights, the body is wheeled away, and there remains a numbness. It feels like the world should stop for a moment because a life was lost, but instead the room is quickly prepped for the next patient.
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“We have a monumental opportunity before us…to redesign how it is we die.” –BJ Miller
With planning, end of life can bring us closer through compassion. There is not a magic reset button for end of life; there are no do-overs. In this TED Talk, B.J. Miller lays out real life examples of human connection through our senses. When one of the residents dies at the Zen Hospice Project, the body is wheeled through the garden. Songs and stories are shared while flower petals are placed on the body. Mourning is guided in with warmth.
It’s a beautiful redesign of the inevitable.
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“Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” -Jeffrey Zeldman
No matter what area of your life needs redesigning, you have the incredible opportunity to start again. It doesn’t even have to be major. There are times when acting on the small things makes all the difference. Here’s to your redesign plan!
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“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” –Brian Reed
It’s no secret that I love books. Last year, I confessed to abiliophobia, the fear of being without a book or at least something to read. There’s little more concerning to me than being stuck somewhere with nothing to read.
Fortunately for me, my career has me covered. Whether in a library, a book warehouse, a publisher, a bookstore or my home, I always have several within reach.
Like most of us, a book cover captures my interest. I often pause and peruse books simply based on the graphic design.
Do you ever buy a book because you are attracted to its cover? That’s the goal of every designer: to influence that moment and make you take action. Pick me up!
Each year, I make a list of the best book covers. And, it’s not only fun, did you know that book covers also offer valuable leadership and goal setting lessons? (Click here to read more.)
If you want to compare this year’s list with previous years:
What does it take to make it into the history books as one of the world’s greatest innovators?
Do creative geniuses have any unique characteristics?
Rowan Gibson, one of the world’s foremost thought leaders on business innovation, previously shared some of his thinking about his new book, The 4 Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking. Part of what makes his research unique is that he studied innovators throughout history to understand their thinking, their characteristics, and their methodology. What he shared with me about history’s greatest innovators may influence the way you manage, the way you look at your boss, or the way you look at others we label as stubborn. Because, as we will see, the best innovators are often the most unreasonable people.
Why the Best Innovators Are Unreasonable
Rowan, throughout your new book, you give examples ranging from da Vinci to Richard Branson. By studying these innovators, you developed a unique perspective. What does one need to possess or do to get mentioned in the history books?
I think those that make it into the history books are to some extent unreasonable people. George Bernard Shaw put it best when he argued that, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Innovators like the ones I just mentioned – Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk –these are not reasonable people. They don’t just accept that the world is the way it is. They have this deep, insatiable urge to improve it or radically change it to fit their own vision of how things should be.
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“You can’t harvest big ideas unless you sow the right seeds.” -Rowan Gibson
Take da Vinci. Was he a reasonable person? Here’s a man who filled 13,000 pages of notebooks with scribbles, drawings, scientific diagrams, and designs—everything from human anatomy and facial expressions to animals, birds, plants, rocks, water, chemistry, optics, painting, astronomy, architecture, and engineering. He once coated the wings of a fly with honey just to see if it would change the sound of the fly’s buzzing noise in flight. Why would anyone do that? Da Vinci did it to establish that the pitch of a musical note is connected with the speed of the percussive movement of the air. In this case the fly’s wings became heavier due to the honey, so they couldn’t beat as fast, resulting in a lower-pitched buzzing sound–which of course might be interesting at some level, but reasonable people don’t do things like that.
Unreasonable Innovator: Richard Branson
Let’s say you opened a little record store in London, UK. That’s nothing out of the ordinary. But would you call it “Virgin”? And would you then create your own record label and start backing unknown musicians like Mike Oldfield or controversial bands like the Sex Pistols? Would you try to grow your one little record store into a national chain of media hypermarkets? I mean, if you did all of that, it would be quite remarkable. But would you then decide to start your own transatlantic airline and go up against British Airways on their own turf? Would you try to build your own mobile phone business from scratch and then your own bank or take a big risk by investing in a space tourism company? These are not reasonable things to do. So clearly Richard Branson is not a reasonable man.
I love books. In fact, I think I must confess that I have abiliophobia, the fear of being without a book or at least something to read.
In recent years, my career has me surrounded with books whether in a library, a book warehouse, a bookstore or my home. And what captures my attention? Book covers.
Book Covers Pull You In
Do you ever buy a book because you are attracted to its cover? Book covers do that. A well-designed book jacket stops you. Maybe makes you squint or smile or pause for a second. It calls you to pick up the book and look inside.
Each year, I make a list of the best book covers. And, it’s not only fun, did you know that book covers also offer valuable leadership and goal setting lessons? (Click here to read more.)
If you want to compare this year’s list with previous years:
