Great Design Comes from Looking Away

Christopher Butler on design:

The most innovative solutions often come from designers who are aware of conventions but not beholden to them. They know the rules well enough to break them purposefully. They understand context but aren’t limited by precedent. They’ve cultivated the discipline to look away from existing solutions when it matters most — during the critical phases of ideation and development when uniqueness of vision is most vulnerable to external influence.

When we constantly reference existing solutions, our work inevitably gravitates toward the mean. We solve for expectations rather than needs.

Great design requires both looking and looking away — studying and ignoring, learning and forgetting, absorbing and creating. The magic happens not just in what we choose to see, but in what we deliberately choose not to see.