The Flaws are the Sauce

Funny revelations about getting stuck. Reflections on what makes creations feel human.

What is Chasing Rectangles?

Making happy little divs.
Questioning reality pixel by pixel.

Austen: 00:04

Good morning, fine listener. Remember how on the last episode I joked about not getting stuck on the name. Right? I suggested a name, and we're going with that name. And which, by the way, is pretty pretty sure that's the first time I've ever, like, one shot the name, and it just kind of stuck, and we're just rolling with it.

Austen: 00:27

Right? So I'm rolling with it yesterday. I'm like, sweet. We didn't get stuck on this. I can change it later.

Austen: 00:33

Trying to set up the transistor.fm to make this podcast a reality. Happily trotting through the transistor.fm forest, and then I discover a very scary monster in this forest, and that is the podcast cover artwork. Then, funnily enough, I get stuck on the podcast artwork in the process of making that for hours. I'm telling you, I put probably eight hours into this silly little thing, and it's funny to me, after I talked about not getting stuck on the name that we got stuck immediately after that on the artwork. So, I thought I would share that with you.

Austen: 01:17

And, also, let's talk about okay. What what I should have done was just use big bold text and a bunch of rectangles in Figma in, like, a minute, put it up there, called it a day, changed it later. Changed it later. Right? Later later is a good problem to have because it means we're still making the podcast.

Austen: 01:40

And that's what matters is what you're hearing. Right? So, anyway, what what I did yeah. What I mean, eight hours fiddling in Photoshop, Procreate, trying to paint and draw and sketch and hack things up and add elements, remove elements, all of this stuff. Right?

Austen: 01:59

And so doing that, was fun. It was fun. I still don't think the result, this current cover art is perfect. I'm proud of it, but not not, like, ultra proud. Like, this is the best piece of art I've ever done.

Austen: 02:13

But it's certainly enough. And it although it can change later, it may never change. It might be fine. It might be enough forever, and probably is. So, in that, I have embraced the imperfections.

Austen: 02:27

Right? I kinda gave up on fiddling, which is often what design can feel like at times. And so re yeah. Like, what I'm trying to say is the age old advice of or mantra. I don't know what what it is exactly, but that things are better when they're not perfect.

Austen: 02:49

And I that is to say another way that the little tiny mistakes and bugs and quirks are what makes makes things human in art. Programming's a little different. I mean, we're talking to computers after all. Right? So it's inherently less human, but bugs can become features.

Austen: 03:11

I mean, that's that's a real thing. Maybe Maybe it's happened to you. As the great Bob Ross would say, happy mistakes. The but, like, those are the things that lead to growth. Those are the things that lead to making things feel human in an age where things are feeling increasingly less human, at least if you're a web developer or an artist, musician, you know, these things.

Austen: 03:37

So that's that being said, the flaws are the solves, and I hope you folks have a nice day. Take care. Bye.