Function & Style

Well, with the passing on of Steve Jobs, I think it's time for a quick reflection on the blog name.  Function and Style comes from the fact that much of my life is dedicated to thinking and and innovating on how to create functional products that have an element of style and delight to them.  As a user experience practitioner, this is a daily goal that I hold myself to.  Upon starting this blog, I realized that many of the things that I planned on blogging about also had this common theme - I want to make things with my hands that are stylish and bring me happiness, but I also love things that are functional and usable in my daily life.

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Steve Jobs is the icon of this combination in our world today.  With the last decade or more of Apple products, he has continued to push his company and himself to achieve solutions that are functional and stylish.  Most technology companies focused in on function, and keep adding functionality to beat each other.  Apple and Jobs step back, find the functionality that matters, and then add style and delight in a way that draws people to their products.  Minimizing a product to find the greatest areas of impact, and then pushing the envelope on those areas, is not an easy feat.  I can only hope that in my career and personal projects I can achieve this balance.

RIP Steve.  Thanks for the inspiration and challenge you have presented to me and others around the world.