Patrick Johnson

The Lowest Common Denominator

Usually the most common denominator is a good thing for everyone. It breaks something, anything down to the lowest understanding, including as many as possible. While availablity is increased it’s usually at the expense of quality. 

Uniqlo is a good example to understand the loss of quality at the gain of growth:

Prior to opening more US stores uniqlo had a small footprint in the United States. This tiny footprint meant they could focus on their audience - those in China/Japan/Asia. Supplying those individuals with the New York store as a sub-thought they were able to maintain their typical sizing, craft clothing with Supima cotton, maintain low prices and still offer a quality product. 

Since the growth of Uniqlo it has sacrificed crafted goods for commercialized masses. While Supima cotton is still used in their shirts they’ve started constructing shirts untrue to sizes, smalls are now a bigger small, medium a bigger medium, etc. One couldargue this is due to the fattening of America and the need to hide obesity through larger shirts, blouse-y tops and looser fitting clothes. 

The jeans are now made thinner material and less craftsmanship. The now “exclusive” jeans, which used to be the regular cut, cotton and quality are chalked up 20%. Uniqlo has sacrificed their form and fashion to appease growth, profit and a broader audience. 

In some instance, this being one of them, growth doesn’t always mean a good thing.

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.

— 

Here is New York, E. B. White, 1949 (via cdixon)

I’m so glad I found this from @cdixon. He’s ridiculously smart. Follow him on Twitter!

If we allow failure to exist, then we can also disallow it. And if we disallow it, we can think the way we did as children. Where one dream not realized becomes another dream still to happen.

— Danny Brown (via smarterthaniam)

Another day at work…in Dubai

quotevadis:

“Believe in your fucking self. Stay up all fucking night. Work outside of your fucking habits. Know when to fucking speak up. Fucking collaborate. Don’t fucking procrastinate. Get over your fucking self. Keep fucking learning. Form follows fucking function. A computer is a Lite-Brite for bad fucking ideas. Find fucking inspiration everywhere. Fucking network. Educate your fucking client. Trust your fucking gut. Ask for fucking help. Make it fucking sustainable. Question fucking everything. Have a fucking concept. Learn to take some fucking criticism. Make me fucking care. Use fucking spell check. Do your fucking research. Sketch more fucking ideas. The problem contains the fucking solution. Think about the fucking possibilities.”

— Brian Buirge and Jason Bacher from Good Fucking Design Advice.

Happy 10,000 followers. Improved concept and design coming in the next month or so.

jpeters1221:

Ha. Good show sir!

rosiesiman:

hehe

(Source: thistlesnweeds, via misskatiemo)

Top five regrets of the dying

jayparkinsonmd:

nevver:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

more

Also, read The Life Reports.

If you couldn’t describe what you do for a living how would that make you feel?