David Hughes

Notes From Afar

Tag: Beauty (page 1 of 1)

22 April 2019

Equus Leather – Beautiful & Bespoke

Whilst talking about creating enduring beauty I wanted to share these fabulous videos from Equus Leather with you.

Equus Leather create bespoke, hand crafted leather items, and this video showing the creation of a handmade watch strap is absolutely captivating:

The Equus straps start at £160, but when you see the amount of handwork, care and attention that goes into their creation they begin to feel like good value. Especially when compared to £50 for a piece of mass-produced rubber from Apple.

Equus recently worked with other craftsmen to create a classic attache case:

I’ve always joked about taking up woodworking as a retirement hobby, but now I think leather working might be even more satisfying.

21 April 2019

DO Design by Alan Moore

Last month I had the pleasure of seeing Alan Moore, author of DO Design, give a talk on Creating Enduring Beauty.

Do Design book

Ahead of seeing Alan talk I re-read DO Design and was struck by this passage:

The purpose of the work for the Shakers was as much to benefit the spirit as it was to produce the goods.

The universe had clearly decided it was time for me to think about the Shakers and their design philosophy as earlier in the week I had saved this quote defining it thus:

Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.

Isn’t that the most perfect philosophy for designers, creators, makers, craftsmen and us all?

In DO Design Alan proposes 14 principles for creating enduring beauty:

  • Be curious about the world
  • Increase your depth of field
  • Develop an ability to adapt
  • Observe
  • Go see
  • Understand language
  • Be open
  • Work better together
  • Start with optimism
  • Recognise no boundaries
  • Surrender
  • Only work with good people
  • Let go of fear
  • Seek to create enduring beauty

These principles are described in more depth in DO Design and are worth the price of admission alone.

Read, absorb and re-visit regularly.