What is good design? I ask you to think about designs in your life that you’ve kept. The insignificant ones. The ones that adorn empty boxes that you just can’t seem to get rid of. Or the pen you got from a convention or a vacation years ago that you always keep at your desk. What makes these special? Are they just inherently dear to us? They can’t be, right? They’re just packages and trinkets that serve no real purpose. At least, not one that can’t be fulfilled by any other of its kind. They could easily be replaced and the world would keep turning. So why then, do we still want to keep them? Why are they keepsakes to us? What makes them special? I’ll take a gander at trying to explain my understanding.

I know that I personally kept the boxes for my previous iPhones and Apple products for months, if not years, afterwards. I also know that I’m not alone in that. I swear I’m not weird and crazy for holding onto a box that no longer has a purpose. Thousands of others do too. I got to experience that knowledge firsthand. I used to work at T-mobile when I was in the early years of college. Just a tiny little shop in a small shopping plaza in Atascadero. Before I started my job there I could never really pin down why the Apple packaging was something I held onto. But I quickly started realizing that most others I spoke to did too.

After selling, returning, and trading in enough of them, I started to get it. After handling hundreds of them I started paying more attention to subtle details. The slightly raised face of the front image, the smooth matte finish of the box, the vinyl strips that perfectly tear when you open the box. Everything kinda just perfectly came together. It just felt like a step above what you typically expect from packaging.

After I noticed, I started bringing it up to customers. A lot of them knew me from previous interactions, and we often had a lot of time for phone transfers, so I started letting my curiosity show. Most of them kept the boxes too. They all loved the design, how luxurious it was, how luxurious it felt. I talked with Samsung users too of course, but no one really cared as much when it came to the packaging. The internal cardboard wasn’t perfectly molded to fit the phone’s ever minute structural detail. The protective sticker never felt smooth and effortless to pull off the screen. It never felt special.

That’s what I believe good design is. It’s a feeling. And it goes beyond just the idea of luxury behind the brand or the message written on the side. It extends into the very essence of how a message gets communicated. The typeface used, the image chosen, its exact rotation, the materials it's comprised of, the way it opens, the way it's perfectly form fitting. It all comes together to create a unique, memorable experience. An experience that transcends beyond a 2-dimensional paper or a 3-dimensional box. Something that goes beyond.

I think that’s at the heart of design. It’s a secret language that all of us can hear but very few of us can speak. I want to speak it. I want to create boxes that people can’t quite seem to throw away, I want to create brands that immerse you in an entire world, enveloping you in the unique experience of their core values. I think I can. 

I spent 8 years studying music, playing different instruments, joining different ensembles, playing concerts, improvising jazz, and analyzing music. I think that was just my preparation for speaking the language of design. Like music, design is so integral to our lives that it can almost be hard to notice sometimes. But you immediately notice when it’s not there. Design is just the most recent language I’ve picked up. It’s always changing, like languages do. They adapt to the people that speak them. It eternally shifts and changes. And it’s changing into a language of experiences.

Social media is proof of this. People post everything, everywhere, all the time. Every single thing people experience exists somewhere on the internet. People want to feel. They want to experience something. Life is a search for experience and good design can provide that. So that’s what it must be. Good design not only communicates a vision, but allows others to experience it. 

I aim to provide that.