Guest Post: Anne Aretz // @aaretz

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…the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

– Steve Jobs, 2005

This is my favorite quote from Steve Jobs; it has always stuck with me and I still have the copy that I printed, cut out and stuck in every journal/sketchbook I’ve had since. As I got older though, every time I looked at the rumpled, coffee-stained and slightly doodled on piece of paper, I thought of my brother Alex.

Alex did everything on his own terms, all in the pursuit of what he loved to do. He went from college to boat captain, to waiter, to bike messenger and a few places in between before starting Taza Chocolate. As a man with a degree in Anthropology from Vassar, the path to a chocolate maker was not exactly a straight one, but he just followed what he loved and eventually landed on his passion. As I get older and become closer to my brother, I appreciate more and more his life philosophy, learn from it and am inspired to bring that into my life everyday.

Jobs’ last line, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life” pretty much epitomizes Alex and what he has always told me when I panic about meeting expectations and not disappointing people (we all have those moments). He always told me to live my own life and do what makes me happy, but my generation (apparently I’m an ‘Older Millennial’) heard those words a lot, but Alex said those words and lived them, which is just plain brave.

Guest Post: Anne Aretz // @aaretz

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Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design helps a product to be understood
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is durable
Good design is consistent to the last detail
Good design is concerned with the environment
Good design is a s little design as possible

- Dieter Rams

I am not a designer, but I have always loved good design. Maybe it is my German roots, but I’ve always been drawn to an inspired by the simple,
functional and elegant design of mid-century modern. So, it goes without saying, Dieter Rams is one of my favorite people, but it is this quote that did it for me.

When I heard this, I actually said out loud “Fuck yeah!” It made me want to be a designer. It pushes me everyday to stop over thinking, stop trying to be innovative by coming up with some insane, outlandish, and complicated idea that has no purpose aside from itself. Think about it, do you love to eat the molecular gastronomy of Ferran Adrià or a perfectly cooked steak? The ones who make brilliance with almost nothing are the ones that inspire me.