After my father passed in February following a very full, very accomplished 88 years, I had the less-than-pleasant opportunity to sift through his personal possessions. Amongst a multitude of books, printouts and miscellanea of his hobbies were some very old-school tools of design. Mechanical pencils and a large round cast iron sharpener, French curve templates, guides and so on. All from his days designing everything from trade show displays to R&D labs to battleships.
My father was an innovator. He subscribed to no particular codified “body of knowledge” but his results were inspiring. The majority of his great work preceded ubiquitous CAD/CAM installations. As a testament to what simply “got done” without technology, he had designed and built an enormous miniature model city for use in a military flight simulator, long before the existence of a computer that could render scenic imagery in real time. Quite literally he designed a system where a video camera “flew over” a terrestrial model while the video was piped to a CRT in the simulator’s cockpit.
Back in his home office there was colored lead, measuring devices, T-squares, grid and tracing papers. From these came enormous military vehicles and trendy advertising displays. Things that mattered; things that moved product and saved lives. All powered by a large metal desk rather than Autodesk.
As I rummaged through these items, and considered the generations of people that have manned, traveled in, and simply utilized all that he had designed without the aid of today’s technology, I am once again schooled. Not old schooled, not new schooled, just schooled.
Designing great products, innovating, creating, improving, maximizing, optimizing, doesn’t require complex tools (or corporate conformity — he was a instigator for progress). It requires a great ear to what the customer wants (even if they don’t know), ingenuity to create a solution, and the mojo to make it happen in the face of layered mediocrity. My father had all of that, and I like to think I continue in that line. I’m very proud of all he has created, and I let him know that. He was never shy to let me know of his pride in my creations.
It doesn’t take vast and complex technical tools, resources, or personnel to create an amazing product, service, marketing piece or anything else. It just takes what my father called “the big room – the room for improvement.” That thinking leaves you ever unsatisfied, and you have to know when to stop — but knowing there’s always that room, you never come to rest. And that’s a very good thing.
Once I pass and if there’s someplace like heaven, I’m certain he’ll have been working to thoroughly modernize those pearly gates and triple the tactical maneuverability of angel’s wings.
In the spirit of my Dad, we should all endeavor to make every product, service, process and organization we touch, better. Never be satisfied. That was his legacy, and that is mine. I hope it’s yours too.
With computer or drafting pencil, the results are the same: what can we make better?
[Miss you Dad]
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