Nobody asked for this

All this is to say is that for design, as for other fields, the road to greatness is often paved with obsession—an immoderate, unjustifiable surplus of care. Doing things that no-one asked for with a love that no-one could reasonably expect.

There are lot of different ways to define great design, but this display of obsessive care over the things that “no-one asked for” is probably my favourite. More than a little neurotic and almost never making financial sense, this desire to go further than required has always seemed to me so noble, a pure expression of the deferred love contained w... See more