Hello designers!

A quick shoutout to subscribers

I’ll be continuing to share a prompt in the Substack chat (available on the iOS app) each week along with my post, so please come say hello!

And now, on to what we’re all here for… a little weekly gratitude.

Design Gratitude

This week I’m grateful for Dyson cordless vacuums.

Yeah, I know, this one exposes me for what I truly am… just another basic designer. 🙃

While Dyson has a number of nicely designed and useful products, the cordless vacuum is the only one I’ve experienced that has truly lived up to the hype.

But why’s it a good design? Let’s count the ways…

Rams’ principle #2: It’s useful

The Dyson cordless vacuum is peak utility for me as I use the one I own all the time.

I use it to clean the floors of my apartment.

I use it to clean my car.

I even used it to vacuum seal bags of clothes when I moved across the country!

It’s just a supremely flexible and useful device.

Rams’ principle #5: It’s unobtrusive

Unlike most other vacuums that take up a bunch of closet space, the Dyson neatly hangs on a wall mount that’s included in the box.

When you need to take it out of the house, it neatly breaks down into a handheld size with a convenient carry bag for its various attachments.

The Dyson vacuum gets the job done easily and then gets out of the way, which in my book is pretty much the pinnacle of praise for an appliance like this.

But wait… some caveats

Despite getting the nod for my gratitude this week, there’s room for improvement.

First, Dyson stuff is priced at a significant premium. So although it’s good stuff, I almost always wonder: “is it worth that much more?”

Second, although the aesthetics are probably still better than most vacuums I don’t love a lot of the color combinations they offer. Some are pretty nice. Others… questionable! So if you’re like me and hold off until a sale to jump in, good luck! The weirdest of the weird colors might just be your fate.

Lastly, the way Dyson talks about its technology is fairly infuriating. While it’s not exactly dishonest, it’s not very direct either.

So yeah, still grateful for these vacuums, but come on Dyson. Just be like 50% less annoying so I don’t have to write a caveat to my gratitude… 😅🙏

Designer of the week

Andy Budd - Design leader & start-up advisor (Twitter: @andybudd)

I’ve been following Andy on Twitter for a while and he consistently has an interesting point of view, particularly on the business side of design.

A big part of whether or not a design succeeds comes down to making space for good design to happen in the first place and Andy has lots of good ideas on how to create that space. Give him a follow!

A video to watch

“We Spent 24 hours with Mr. Beast” - Colin and Samir

“It’s like the freakin’ Beatles out there!”

These are the words of the chef responsible for feeding the 10,000+ screaming fans at the launch of Mr. Beast’s first in-person Beast Burger location in New Jersey.

Mr. Beast never does anything small and this video by Colin and Samir is a pretty incredible document of just how crazy things get when you have 111 million subscribers.

A book to read

How to Be Perfect - Michael Schur

What is TV comedy hitmaker Michael Schur doing writing a philosophy book? Well, he needed to better understand a number of deep concepts to be able to write the show The Good Place and decided to share what he learned in this format too.

Fun fact about me: I majored in political science with a focus on political philosophy. This meant I spent an ungodly number of hours in the library banging my head on the desk while trying to understand what folks like Aristotle, Mill, and Kant were talking about. Though the concepts are anything but light reading in their original form, they’re so worth the effort to understand.

But lucky for you, you can now skip past the part where you bang your head on the desk… and just read this! It’s much more approachable.

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