Is design as simple as everything you’ve experienced being digested, iterated upon, and spat back out on top of a foundation of principles?

Kyle Meyer wonders aloud if design is a machine. I, like Kyle, feel strongly that my work is less about being creative and more about applying formulaic approaches to creative problems.

But then, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo famously writes most of his songs using a similar “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus” formula, but you can’t put two Weezer songs together and expect them to sound anything alike. There is something creative happening within that formula.

Another great example is cooking: you take a recipe (formula), but add your own spin to it by replacing one ingredient with another, or switching from a frying pan to a BBQ. All of these little changes result in meals that taste completely different, all starting with the same formula.

So, maybe it’s a bit of both: formula and creativity.