What is Good Design?

Good design starts with an objective, an answer for a ‘job to be done’. Finding this raison d’etre is the most important step, the core around which the entire process will revolve. Once set, you gather everything in nature and in your consciousness that relates to the objective, and start building.

When you're done, tear the whole thing apart. Take only the parts that are aligned to the core, those that have a good answer for every why. Build it back. Repeat the process until you are at the point where the difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the greatest.
 

This applies to any man-made work. A gadget, a poem, a meal, a novel, a building, a painting… The process is easy. Gathering the materials is easy. Even setting the objective is fairly easy. What is difficult is knowing when to stop in the process of creative destruction.

Stop too early and you might forget some polish. Stop too late and you will have created extra appendages. Good design is organic, it's alive. You can just feel it when something is well designed. The designer stopped at the perfect moment.