Beyond the “Golden Rule” of freely allowing yourself failure, there’s one additional philosophy I always try to incorporate…my secret weapon: after factoring in all other project requirements for a design, give yourself one additional design challenge, some guiding principle. Yes, give yourself more work! This steers the result away from being Just Another Rectangular Box. Sometimes this extra challenge is as simple as “avoid the color black for this project, it’s cliché.” Other times it’s a bigger technical hurdle, like avoiding fasteners altogether. But it’s always that “one more thing…” that elevates the finished product from simply solving a problem to solving a problem with distinction.
