Don’t You Miss Beautiful Objects Around You?
On one of my flights in August, I watched David Letterman’s show on Netflix, interviewing Jerry Seinfeld (If you haven’t, I highly recommend it).
At a certain point, Letterman asked Seinfeld why he collects old cars.
“I just love…these were some beautiful, interesting objects that no longer fill the world. The cars out on the street now are very boring to look at, and I miss that. And so that was kind of something I wanted to do. Go ‘hey, do you remember when it was fun to look at cars?’
Most companies, whether they create products, software, or hardware, neglect aesthetics in the name of functionality. Let me be clear here; Seinfeld, in a different conversation with Jay Leno, mentioned his love for Porsche’s minimalism, functionality, and gracefulness. But if there is one lesson I learned is that minimalism and simplicity are the most challenging accomplishment one can achieve.
So instead of getting “a white box or a black box. and maybe an oblong box, maybe a square box. But that is for cars,” as summarized by Letterman, it is worth investing in functional AND aesthetic objects.
One doesn’t have to choose; one just needs to care and invest.
