image courtesy of Flickr user, Mike Rohde

John Gruber of Daring Fireball and Michael Lopp Apple spoke to an overflowing ballroom of designers at 3:30 today. They discussed what it takes to do great design on a SXSW panel called, appropriately enough, Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Great Design Hurts.

Their basic premise:

The core dilemma for talented designers in any field is this: If you strive for greatness in your design, you will meet resistance; if you strive to avoid resistance, you can’t do great design.

Lopp is a Sr. Engineering Manager at Apple. He provided some interesting insight into the company’s design process. He said they do “pixel perfect mockups” with no Greek text, in order to remove any ambiguity. Lopp also said Apple works on a 10-to-3-to-1 plan, where 10 concepts are fully developed before they’re whittled down to three, then one. All of which is a simple reminder of how hard it is to do great work. Lopp did not say this, but it’s evident that Apple removes all laziness from their daily practice. An act which creates a culture of excellence.

Gruber talked about Paul Rand and attributed a quote to the man. “Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think it means original work is an outcome, not a goal. The goal is to be good and when you are, you’ll produce original work.

Gruber mentioned how Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the use of storyboards. He said Hitchcock didn’t shoot films, he made movies. In a time when the studios had extraordinary control, Hitchcock wrestled control away. Since he was meticulous in his planning, and only shot what he storyboarded, it left no room room for interpretation in the edit. Smart.

Finally, Gruber asked the designers gathered before him if they were willing to be called an asshole. He said it’s a serious question, that conflict is inherent in great design.