INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS: how cooking has helped me understand design

Cooking is my creative outlet outside of work. No clients, no stakeholders, just me, my knife, and the ingredients. And after 20+ years of both, I realize how close cooking is to design.

You learn when to hold back and when to build complexity. A perfect tomato needs only salt and olive oil. Indian cuisine might use a dozen spices in precise ratios. Both are beautiful. It’s about knowing why every element is there. Whether it’s three ingredients or thirty, nothing is added without purpose.

Obsess over the basics no one talks about. Knife skills and heat control in cooking. Form language and proportion in design. People only notice when they’re wrong. When they’re right, everything feels effortless.

You taste and adjust, sketch and revise, then try again. You don’t land a perfect dish or a perfect concept on the first try. You keep going until it works.

The goal isn’t recognition. It’s to make something so considered, so inevitable, that no one can imagine it any other way.

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