“There is a reason why good wine tastes better in a wine glass than in a plastic cup, or why hot dogs taste better at a picnic than at a sit-down dinner. The right frame complements the contents.”
Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen Guitar (Page 116)
“Learn to identify quality and appreciate anything that’s well made, wherever you find it. Look deeply into the spirit that goes into making an item of quality—the care, the precision, the attention to detail. Incorporate that spirit into your work in this dojo. Anything you set out to make—music, love, a bookshelf, a meal—make as well as you can. To do otherwise is spiritless.”
Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen Guitar (Page 28)
“In writing your journal give primary attention to detail; for it is detail which organizes and preserves experience for your future self or some other reader. General statements like ‘We had a wonderful time’ or ‘It was a dismal morning’ make a mockery of the whole procedure, for they evaluate experience without recreating it. I kept long journals from ages ten to twenty-two, chronicling events and describing emotional states, but again and again missing the physical immediacy of experience, the tiny hooks by which experience could have been caught and held. I failed to record how we looked, what we saw, the minor eccentricities of circumstance which gave special character to a day. I ignored these elements not only through lack of training but through misplaced priorities: I mistakingly assumed that one could discuss the heart of things without discussing the surface of things.”
Robert Grudin, Time And The Art Of Living (Page 180)
“Most people don’t have the patience to absorb their minds in the fine points and minutiae that are intrinsically part of their work. They are in a hurry to create effects and make a splash; they think in large brush strokes. Their work inevitably reveals their lack of attention to detail—it doesn’t connect deeply with the public, and it feels flimsy. You must see whatever you produce as something that has a life and presence of its own.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 99)
George St-Pierre | Read Matt’s Blog on this quote ➜
When you pay attention to detail, the big picture will take care of itself.
“We don’t tolerate typos in commercial products, and the market has the same feeling about design that’s lazy or out of place. Graphic design represents an emotional commitment to the work. Long before we read the words or understand the images, we see the layout. Kerning and color and weight and form arrive in our brains before we have decided what the words on the page actually mean. You wouldn’t wear a clown suit to a job interview, and yet people dress up their ideas in clown suits all the time.”
Seth Godin, Blog