Structures

A colleague asked me if there is anything I always do when I approach a project. Initially I really wasn’t sure what to say. After some thought the closest I could get to an answer was this: I am always looking for – and at – structure. Before any project begins you have to find its potential structure. That will allow you to build it… or reveal it.

What I liked about this attitude is that it applies to any size of project: A story, a page, a letterform or a sentence, a picture, building, city, book or app. Apps have extraordinary structures that can be so hard to find. Buildings are the most obvious representation of structure as our lives take place in and around them. I think my point might be that I am not sure there is anything that doesn’t have a structure of some kind. When you are at the start of a project “What is the nature of the structure?” is the question.