Shy bairns, get nowt.
“Shy bairns, get nowt” was something my Nana used to say a lot to me. For those not raised in the North-East of England, or maybe Scotland;
Bairns = Children
Nowt = Nothing
Nana = My Father’s Mother
Note: My Mother’s Mother, we called Grandma. Unclear if this was every family or just us.
She’d say this to encourage me to talk to people, state what I wanted or was interested in. And generally to talk more. I was a quiet child, mostly still am. Quiet I mean, though maybe not without childishness too. It felt like good and justified advice then and even more now. It was also something unique to the North-East of England. As I moved further from home – First to London, then to New York – It becomes more of a philosophy, something to keep me leaning in and something to remind me where I came from. I have it engraved on a ring, it’s a nice physical token to remember it by.
I’m writing about this now as it’s also the thing that inspires me to write in public.
Technically I’ve only ever written in private for myself or for my job as a designer. I write to improve my own understanding of something – a gut check for myself “Do I really get this?” At work I’d write a lot to communicate a strategy, or to organize and align a team. But rarely would that writing come out in public with me as the author. It was enough that someone else might say it or have their thinking influenced by it.
Why now? The first blog was written in 1994, so waiting thirty years to see if it takes off seems reasonable. I also have recently had some designers who use to report into me mention that the reviews I wrote had ideas in them they still think about. So if anything it’s to share some ideas that might be helpful.
As for what I’ll write about? Honestly, I’m not sure. A lot will naturally be in some way about design, but probably not the technical detail of it. More ideas, explaining thinking, mental models and a broad swathe of stuff I like. Design at this point for me is a problem solving medium which opens the aperture quite wide for the subjects I might explore.
