INDUSTRIAL DESIGN needs more “good enough”
I used to obsess over perfect.
Perfect render. Perfect tolerance. Perfect packaging.
It took me a while to learn this hard lesson. In early-stage design, “perfect” is often the wrong goal.
Perfection costs time. It locks in assumptions. It chokes iteration.
The best ideas I’ve ever shipped started out ugly. Rough cardboard. Tape. Foam core. Because at that stage, momentum > aesthetics.
We weren’t trying to impress. We were trying to learn.
That mindset saved clients tens of thousands in wasted development. And ironically, it led to cleaner, tighter outcomes in the end.
Now I tell teams: Prototype like no one’s watching. Because perfection is the enemy of progress.
Need a lesson in how to design your next product?
Where do you draw the line between iteration and polish?
