What a Paper Prototype Still Teaches

Before a single pixel moved, our last redesign lived on a kitchen table as forty index cards. Half of them did not survive the first test.

Most of the improvement in a draft comes from cutting. We aim to remove a fifth of every piece on the second pass, and the reader never misses it.

Every studio accumulates habits it never chose. Once a year we list them and ask whether each one still earns its place.

The part nobody mentions

We schedule unstructured time on purpose. Some of our best ideas started as an afternoon with no plan and a stack of old magazines.

Taking notes by hand is slower, and that is the point. The friction forces you to decide what matters before you write it down.

Reading work aloud is the cheapest editing tool there is. Your ear catches rhythm problems that your eye skips over, especially in long sentences.

Constraints are underrated. A fixed word count, a single typeface, or a two-colour palette forces decisions that an open brief lets you postpone forever.

• One idea per paragraph
• One job per sentence
• Concrete nouns over abstract ones
• Verbs that move

Omit needless words.

William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style

Reading work aloud is the cheapest editing tool there is. Your ear catches rhythm problems that your eye skips over, especially in long sentences.

The first version of anything is a question, not an answer. Treating it that way makes feedback easier to give and much easier to hear.

Constraints are underrated. A fixed word count, a single typeface, or a two-colour palette forces decisions that an open brief lets you postpone forever.