I am at my most creative when I’m in the same room with other people and we are bouncing ideas around. There’s a compounding effect that takes place. One person says something and that then triggers a new idea. I find the whole experience very… Read More
I was in a “design charrette” meeting earlier today where the topic of good architecture and why some cities do better than others came up. It got me thinking about my recent post about the quality of Canadian architecture and so I’d like to revisit… Read More
According to Walter Isaacson – the bestselling author of their biographies – it is this: I started with Ben Franklin, and then Einstein, and then Steve Jobs—[they were all] innovative and creative. And I said, “Well, what pattern [leads to] that?” The pattern wasn’t that… Read More
I would like to do a follow-up to yesterday’s post about innovators and creators, because I recently stumbled up the following quote: “We think of creative people in a heroic manner, and we celebrate them, but the thing we celebrate is the after-effect,” says Barry… Read More
The world-renowned design firm IDEO is known for hiring people described as being “t-shaped.” Here’s a quote from an interview with CEO Tim Brown explaining what that means: “T-shaped people have two kinds of characteristics, hence the use of the letter “T” to describe them.… Read More
Polygraph (visually-driven essays) has a great piece called, The Entire History of Kickstarter Projects, Broken Down by City. What they did was look at 88,475 Kickstarter projects to map the various creative communities across the US. Here’s a snapshot (you may need to zoom in):… Read More
I was walking by a tight construction site last night and it got me thinking. Besides the obvious environmental benefits of building up, as opposed to out, compact urban sites can force something else: intent. One of the ways I think about good design is that… Read More
One of my biggest pet peeves is when cities copy things from other cities. Let me give you an example. Whenever I see one of those red double decker tourist buses roaming around Toronto, I always look to see if it’s the type that has… Read More
Roman Mars of 99% Invisible recently published an excellent episode called The Mind of an Architect. It has to do with a set of research studies completed in the late 1950s by an organization at the University of California, Berkeley known as the Institute of… Read More
I often get asked about my daily routine and how I manage to write, every, single, day. Oftentimes people will say that I must not sleep. But the reality is that I love sleeping and I generally need a lot of it. I’m not someone… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 