Designer Paula Scher at TED Conference on why keeping it playful and why some of her really expensive work is a bit shit

Lots of interesting talks at the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference in Oxford. I loved this one by graphic designer Paula Scher. She talks about why being completely clueless can be really useful, about being a brat, about why it took Citi Group one year to agree a design she drew up in one day and writes off whole swathes of her really successful designs as too “solemn”.

Creativity should be playful she says but it should also be serious. And serious not solemn. Solemnity for her is a condition that kicks in when expectations on you balloon and you start to repeat yourself and get stale.

The Moral: 1) go out and do stuff you have no idea how to do.
2) don’t buy her late map pictures, she doesn’t think they’re very good.

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