If you want great results in creative efforts, such as product design or advertising, you need three things:

1)  The “A” team within your agency or design group.

2) An insightful brief that gives the creative team an intimate view of the customer and clarifies project goals.

3)  An eye, enabling good judgement of whether the results achieve the objectives in the brief.

About #3…   You might be born with this ability.  You might have access to a good teacher.  Or, you can travel to Kyoto, Japan for an aesthetic infusion.

Kyoto is home to the highest concentration of beautiful gardens that I know of.  Three days of patient absorption in Kyoto will train your eye to see balance, scale, subtlety, refinement, excellence, and restraint.

My mom (a fine arts major) remarked after her visit, “you can aim your camera in any direction and get a perfectly composed picture.”  I was inspired by Kyoto to make my own halting attempt at a Japanese garden in my back yard.  I feel like I’m trying to conduct Beethoven after attending the Chicago Symphony a couple of times.  I have even dared to invite a Japanese colleague (a designer!) to my house to see it.  In finest Japanese fashion, he claimed not to know much about garden design, and was cautiously complimentary.

I will write more about the garden over time, but suffice it for now to say that it is a humbling experience to try to create a worthy Japanese garden.  Maybe I need to return to Kyoto for a refresher.  If you are convinced that you need to go as well, the Journal of Japanese Gardening runs trips with access to private gardens, thought to be the best.