Nuggets of Wisdom

Someone once told me that for every speech/presentation/conference there is at least one nugget of information that makes it all worth it. So far, I have found this to be absolutely true. There is always that one point, once you sift through the not-so-modest portfolio display (most of which you could have seen online for free) there is at least once tip or trick that makes it all worth it. This is also usually the case with design books, especially one in particular. Michael Bierut's 79 Short Essays on Design is quiet possibly the best book out there for valuable nuggets of wisdom. It's filled with more than just fluff about design. Here is just a little taste from "On (Design) Bullshit":

"Bullshit is not designed primarily to give its audience a false belief about whatever state of affairs may be the topic, but that its primary intention is rather to give its audience a false impression concerning what is going on in the mind of the speaker.' It follows that every design presentation is inevitably, at least in part, an exercise in bullshit...In discussing design work with their clients, designers are direct about the functional parts of their solution to obfuscate like mad about the intuitive parts, having learned early on that telling the simple truth – 'I don't know, I just like it that way'–simply won't do".

In short, you should buy this book.