Andrew Kim: Minimal to the max | Hacker News Reader

Andrew Kim: Minimal to the max

microsoft.com

103 pointssheikhimran0158 comments

I've said this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195909

and I'll say it again: if you want to do something, do it.

A great story I heard recently:

A old comedian is talking to a younger, struggling, perhaps up-and-coming comedian. The young comedian is frustrated because he isn't finding the work that he wants (writing), and is bitter about "the business".

The old comedian asks

"So, lets say some famous person wants to hire you for $10,000 a week to just write funny tweets for them. Do you think you'd be able to do it? Come up with something really funny for them every day to post to twitter?"

"For $10,000 a week?"

"Yeah"

"Yeah, sure, for that much money I'm sure I could write something funny for them every day."

"Well then why won't you do it for yourself?"

It is so, so true. I know so many programmers and designers who insist that they want to work either in tech, or in design, yet if you ask them what they're working on, they respond that nobody has hired them yet.

The story was on this episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWH-8v_x68Y

Of the Joe Rogan podcast.

So true. We are conditioned by education to look for a job when our natural inclination is to simply do.

My 8yo niece wants to make money and wanted to have a lemonade stand. Her dad literally told her, no, you need to start thinking about getting a job.

I hope they don't wear her down eventually.

8 years old and get a job?

Labor laws be damned

He didn't mean she should get a job as an 8 year old but that her long term goal should be a job.

Not that I disagree with the overall message but that's a silly example. Writing a joke tweet for yourself wouldn't likely lead to $10,000. At $10,000 a week you can dedicate many hours a day to coming up with a killer joke instead of working some other job or searching for a job... Unless that story is supposed to be a joke, in which case, I didn't get it.

Anecdotal and not super pertinent, but joke Twitter accounts can absolutely net $10,000 a week. There are glorified bots (think something along the lines of @MensHumor or @YaBoyBillNye) with hundreds of thousands of followers that sell advertising (either external links or 'sponsored' tweets) . It's an entire bizarre community that profits massively off of retweet-happy teens.

Unless I am missing something, hundreds of thousands of followers on these types of accounts definitely does not equal close to $10,000 a week.

Anecdotal and not super pertinent, but joke Twitter accounts can absolutely net $10,000 a week

Citation needed.

Oh wait... here goes:

There are glorified bots .. with hundreds of thousands of followers that sell advertising

Ok. So you dont make money tweeting tweets. You make money farming followers and selling ads.

That's acceptable if you can make that work for you, but don't present it like you make money from tweeting when in fact you're make money selling ads.

The money is not even close to the point.

It is about practice. If you <fill in the blank> every day, you will get better and better and better. You will get better much faster than if you try to create the perfect <fill in the blank> on each attempt. And if you keep at it, eventually someone will notice.

Jokes pay about $50. At 1.5 tweets per day, the most someone is going to pay is $2,250 a month. But, when they are sending that much work they are going to ask for a discount. $1,500 a month tops.

Sure, down-vote the joke writer. Classy.

HEY POOR PERSON, INSTEAD OF TRYING TO PREVENT A MISERABLE DEATH FROM STARVATION AND EXPOSURE WHEN YOU'RE CAST OUT ON THE STREETS FOR NOT PAYING RENT, JUST TELL JOKES OR PAINT PRETTY PICTURES ALL DAY, OR WRITE LOVE NOTES, OR JUST STARE OUT THE WINDOW AND DREAMMMMMM!!! BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO ISN'T IT? GOD, IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS, WHY DON'T YOU JUST "GET IT"???

...oh, and by the way, stop hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself. why do you keep hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself.

Now that Kim has a job at Microsoft, a read through of the discussion of the original presentation without this context could be interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195208

Should be interesting for these commenters from the original thread to finally have their answer ;). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4197098

"When it was his turn, Kim took a deep breath, stood next to the large computer monitor he’d hauled into class, and started his presentation. It didn’t include a single Popsicle."

The article goes on about how this was a "thinking outside of the box" move and how it illustrates Kim's brilliance.

I don't know Kim's work. I'm going to assume that he's a talented guy, and perhaps the criticism that follows is better suited for the author, who chose to include it in the article. But this particular anecdote screams "fail!" to me, for one single reason: he was tasked with coming up a popsicle redesign. That was his deliverable, and his instructor was his client.

If I ask a designer to come up with a new design for the rainboots I'll be manufacturing, I don't want them to tell me how I can manufacture umbrellas or inform my customers about the weather so they don't need rainboots -- unless I've included that possibility in the scope of my request.

Do you think instead of coming up with a new XBox logo or whatever he's tasked with at Microsoft, he's going to show them a popsicle? Or a new kind of bookshelf? I think now that he's being paid to do what he wants, he won't find much reason to deviate from what's asked of him.

Here's a link that was posted upthread.

http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2010/3/15/ecocoke.html

All the text is in jpegs. There are many reasons why that's stupid, but "hey, ima designer so fuck you."

He's not a web designer. Why do you give a crap how he renders his concept page? That's like razzing on people for using LaTeX vs. PPT for a presentation.

And his client was impressed. Unless you've taken a class from that instructor, I think you're lacking the context necessary to call his project a failure. What if the professor started every lecture by saying "I expect you to break the rules"?

Because his client in this case doesn't really have money at stakes.

Also "I expect you to break the rule" is a saying that cannot be taken without any scope, it still doesn't mean punching the professor until he give you A is okay.

Clearly the context of the popsicle assignment was not, "I need a better popsicle". It was, "show me what you can do."

He certainly grasped the difference.

Right, when the professor choose popsicle assignment, he clearly want everyone to "grasped the difference" and do nothing about popsicle at all. May be everyone of his assignment is always this meta zen like assignment. Kim would have gotten even higher score had he grasped the truth about "what he can do" and just go doing something else instead of wasting time doing presentation, that's really "what he can do".

Then if the goal was "show me what you can do", why were students confined within the context of designing a new popsicle?

If a student presented their new idea for an ice cream cone via interpretive dance while wearing a Barney costume, would that also fall under "show me what you can do?"

Technically, isn't the professor the one being paid by him?

Probably. You could also argue that if a government (state, local or federal) organization came to him and asked for a design, they're being "paid by him" since they're operating off of tax dollars.

That wasn't my point. The point is that in the real world, every designer (and developer) has a client, regardless of whether they're a freelancer, employee of a commercial company, or even a government employee. Who pays whom is unimportant in this context; what is important is that an agreement has taken place: the designer is to create something at the specific request of a consumer.

The clients have a need, and the designer's job is to meet that need. In the anecdote from the article, the professor is the client, and that client said "redesign a popsicle".

My point is that Kim, as talented as he may be, did not address his client's need in this case.

It's very common for designers to showcase their skills by publishing a redesign of a famous brand or product.

What's less common is for one of these projects to become widely exposed and get recognition. The main reason is that a redesign is usually received with a lot of criticism ("He doesn't know what he's talking about" or "It's not that simple to launch a redesign in a big company" or "It looks good but it's unusable" or even "I could do better").

Such designers usually end up forgotten as quickly as they got famous, for good or bad reasons.

So, I'm quite pleased to see one of these unexpected talents hit the spotlight. Having a post dedicated to you published on the Microsoft website is far from being insignificant, on both sides. The designer gains exposure and confidence, and Microsoft proves its desire to remain innovative and open to new ideas (and criticism).

Will this spawn an era of similar projects to be published by young designers? Maybe it won't, maybe it already has. For example, a designer published a concept for the IMDb iOS7 app [1]. It looks good actually.

What's in for the designer? He has fun, he may get exposure, and it can land him a job.

What's in for the companies being rebranded? It's free publicity and free work, but it's based upon criticism.

I can't tell if such a redesign trend is viable in the long term. It's like those marketplaces where companies launch a $50 offer for their logo. Tons of designers will participate but only one will eventually be picked. It's hundreds of work hours wasted. And what about professional designers who have a hard time finding clients and need to compete with those ridiculous prices?

I'm thinking about designers at Microsoft, IMDB, or American Airlines, how they end up looking with all these projects.

A young designer publishing a rebranding concept on his blog may think it's benign, and actually a good way to get exposure, but it can harm the market and his fellow designers as well.

If you focus on the big picture, it's a worldwide competition that can only lead to a global increase in quality. Maybe that's what the internet, or should I say the web, is about. Having a unified pool of talent that will value your skills regardless of your origin, age, or experience. I'm a designer myself, and I find it both amazing and terrifying.

[1] http://www.behance.net/gallery/IMDb-The-New-iOS-7-App/107118...

Very well said. Upvoted. The products in almost all fields are facing the same situation. Too many choices are actually huge distractions for people. How high quality products find their new places would be an interesting topic. Perhaps food industry can be some kind of model we can study? Or any other industry that is already facing this? I don't have an answer myself yet, but will keep this question in mind and seek the answer.

A key factor in Andrew's success I think was the sheer quality of his work. His new identity was better than a lot of real brands, and vastly superior to most fake redesigns both from an aesthetical and practical point of view.

I must be missing something. While the rebrand thing is cool, how does it relate to popsicles? Wasn't the assignment to redesign the Popsicle?

I can't seem to make the connection between Popsicle and Microsoft, unless you want to go with the metaphor that Microsoft is frozen still while the rest of the competition seems to be moving on. Help?

Popsicles were boring and stupid, so he broke the rules and did something better. Attitudes like that and skipping school to pull gadgets apart are why he's working his dream job.

Right, but I'm not sure why they would even bring up the Popsicle thing at all. If I were at my job and my boss told me to do something, and I thought to myself "That's a stupid idea, I'll do something completely different instead," then best case scenario, I get yelled at for wasting company time, and worst case scenario, I get fired.

So I'm not clear on why he did that. I mean, if he did it on his own time and for fun, then great, but I don't see why we should be applauding him for not doing the assignment...

>I don't see why we should be applauding him for not doing the assignment...

For the same reason he should be applauded for skipping school to work on his side projects: because breaking the rules to do something awesome is good. If he had done the stupid popsicle assignment, he'd still be in school working towards mediocrity. What's the point of that?

The only point of the popsicle assignment was to give students something non-threatening to cut their teeth on. It has absolutely zero value outside of that. Clearly, he didn't need coddling, so he took on a bigger challenge -- and succeeded. That's exactly the type of attitude we should applaud.

Read the article.

> Minimal to the max: The story of a promising young designer and the Popsicle that never was

> In his effort to think outside the box, Kim had moved beyond the box entirely – and beyond the assignment as well. Instead of redesigning dessert, Kim had used his three days to rebrand one of the world’s largest technology companies.

Yeah, I did, but I mean, if I were teaching and I gave an assignment and a student turned in a completely different assignment, he'd get a very puzzled compliment from me for how good the work was, but a zero would go into the gradebook for not completing the assignment.

I guess that's what I'm getting at.

And even outside of a school situation, if I were at work and my boss asked me to build a database and import data from some of our customers due Monday afternoon, and instead I spent the next three days building a brand new app that nobody asked for, I'd be fired (or at the very least reprimanded for wasting company time).

Just kidding here but both one sucks and the other thing you suck on.

Relax...just said that for the joke. I eat my popsicle with a knife and fork.

I love his A New Microsoft presentation when it came out, and I'm thrilled he's making an impact inside the company today.

Exactly what I was going to say. When that A New Microsoft came out, I was blown away and wondered what would happen to the person who produced it. Now he's on the Xbox design team, Awesome. I'll be buying a PS4 this time around though, I hate to use TCO as an example, but it really does matter - If you owned a 360 from day one and you subbed to xbox live, well in Australia that's $90 per year for the last 8 years, that's the cost of a whole second console. Hey how did I turn this into a PS4 vs Xbox One comment.

In Australia cocaine's probably a cheaper habit than gaming.

Sadly you're right $99 AUD for $49 USD games. Yeeeep. That was fine when the Aussie dollar was buying 50 US cents....

It's like technical books here, 1998? 1999? I think that's around when the AUD bought 50/55 cents, Tech books skyrocketed to twice the price if the US RRP, fair enough. When the Aussie dollar reached parity last year or the year before, those tech books? Still twice the price.

Not a great argument for the PS4, considering that online play will require a subscription no cheaper then XBL Gold.

Damn you're right, can't believe I missed that detail, I'd pretty much decided on a PS4 because, hey, free PSN

http://www.geek.com/games/sony-psn-running-costs-are-too-hig...

I guess it was pretty amazing to offer that for free, all good things...

While I'm rooting for him, it's not clear how much impact, if any, they're actually letting him have. MS is an enormous bureaucracy after all.

How to market your design firm / you as a designer:

a) Be a good designer.

b) Passionately redesign objects that people use every day. Kim did cell phones, Coca-Cola bottles and voting ballots before ringing the "all of the internet" bell w/his Windows redesign (1).

c) Show people the work and fire it off to blogs along with a pre-baked headline "15 year old redesigns beautiful flip phone".

I remember watching 37signals employ this exact strategy years ago before they found their SAAS niche redesigning "a bank", FedEx, and others.

In fact their initial SAAS audience grew largely out of the design community that followed their blog.

Dustin Curtis's redesign of American Airlines is another fun example (3)

(1) http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2010/7/11/htc-1.html http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2010/3/15/ecocoke.html http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/america-elect

(2) http://37signals.com/better.php

(3) http://dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html

The America Elect concept is very good... thanks for linky.

I believe that microsoft's design of minimal and flat UI is revolutionizing designs today. You can see Google, Apple and every other startup going with flat UI.

I still find the whole premise of the popsicle and redesigning microsoft - with zero parallels to a popsicle as presented - hard to grasp. But if it worked for him that's all that matters.

His design work aside (which is very strong and that I respect), I'm more impressed and intrigued about how he's leveraged the internet as a platform for his work. It reminds me of Dustin Curtis (although Kim lacks some of the disdain Dustin's managed to acccrue). And while he is very talented, it's not like there aren't designers out there with a similar talent level. Kim's managed to create a following and more importantly for him generate a demand for his work.

Microsoft's interest in pushing him on a page like this demonstrates the brand value Kim's accrued and is quite intriguing.

Kim is also an outstanding reviewer of all kinds of gadgets (phones, headphones, cars, camera's, heck, even coffee grinders) paired with great photography -> http://minimallyminimal.com

I'm not trying to be overly harsh, but have I completely lost touch? Somewhere between the strange page layout and the poor copy, I lost track of what Mr. Kim was supposed to be doing. It went from popsicle redesign (cool, my kids will love this!), to "let's rebrand a software company's message" (awww.). Huh? How is this thinking outside the box? Why not design a new feminine hygiene product while you're at it. Will that impress your pain-in-the-ass professor?

If I were the professor and my job was to prepare students for the "real world", you know, that place where you actually have to make money, he would get an "F-". Even Rodney Dangerfield would have passed with an F+.

I'm sure Mr. Kim is super smart (smarter than me for sure), but what on earth made this MS marketing material HN-worthy? A book-smart 20-ish-year-old has somehow stumbled onto a saving marketing angle for Microsoft?! Kudos for him, that's superior self-marketing. But what a load of complete bullshit.

Good luck to Kim. I really liked his simplicity redesign of the Microsoft brand. Looking forward to more of his stuff in the future!

I'm a big fan of Kim's concept work and read his blog regularly, as I think that his insight and designs are top notch.

That said, it'll be very interesting to see how his talent will be used. I wonder if it will just be industrial/hardware design or if he'll be designing UI's. I think that he's better suited for the former.

I wonder what would come of Microsoft putting out a $1 million offer for a new logo/brand with an entry fee of $10 and the requirement that each submitter must sort 10 other submissions in preference at some later date?

Quick, exploit the recruit for a good social media splash before the heavy behemoth gets to crushing his spirit.

Not too long ago I was wondering what ever happened to this guy once Microsoft scooped him up... now we know.

Wow, haven't seen this design/layout on the msft site yet; I really like it!

That was my initial thought as well.

It sounds like Microsoft is trying to market him as the next Jonathan Ive. Which is not to say he isn't.

That wasn't an insult. Jonathan Ive is a brilliant designer, and Microsoft is smart to create a public image if they have an equally brilliant designer.

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