Eli Burford

Upgraded eMachines E732

Every detail requires deliberation. There are many details. I will spare you an enumeration. But believe me when I say, if you think about them all before you start, you will never start. The rabbit hole is deep. The truth of any craft.

Most of the skills that you need, you’ll learn on the job. Really, the point of going to school is getting good at the skill of learning how to learn. Technologies change. Photoshop won’t be the tool of choice forever. Programming languages and platforms fall in and out of fashion like flannel and thick-rimmed glasses. Be curious, be diligent, and don’t be afraid to read/watch/listen and make. Learning how to learn is the meta-skill that reaps rewards forever.

It’s easy to see passion. Look at someone’s personal work. Their passion projects. What do they do in their free time. If they haven’t done much outside of “work”, it’s not a good sign of their true passion. In startups, the best should be thinking about this stuff at all hours of the day because they can’t keep their minds off of it.

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The ones who think your work is useless or worse, disgusting don’t truly matter. Their dissension should fall on deaf ears because they’d never support you, pay you or join your secret club. When you give up trying to please everyone your work becomes much more focused and valuable to the people that matter.

Design isn’t merely a case of researching market demand and implementing a solution to meet it — it is about figuring out what solution you believe is right for the market, and that conception of right involves you as much as it does the market.

If they choose to use broken and unsupported web browsers, then that's their choice we have to respect. They have to accept the consequences of that decision.

Control over typography is not just a basic design necessity, knowing how to treat text as a user interface is the key factor for successful Web design.

Achievement requires focus. And focus means saying “no” to a lot of distractions.