Advice for students by Charles Eames:
- Make a list of books
- Develop a curiosity
- Look at things as though for the first time
- Think of things in relation to each other
- Always think of the next larger thing
- Avoid the ‘pat’ answer – the formula
- Avoid the preconceived idea
- Study well objects made past recent and ancient but never without the technological and social conditions responsible
- Prepare yourself to search out the true need – physical, psychological
- Prepare yourself to intelligently fill that need
- The art is not something you apply to your work
- The art is the way you do your work, a result of your attitude toward it
- Design is a full time job. It is the way you look at politics, funny papers, listen to music, raise children
- Art is not a thing in a vacuum –
- No personal signature
- Economy of material
- Avoid the contrived
- No office wants to add another prima donna to its staff
- No office is looking for a great creative genius
- No office – or at least very few – can train employees from scratch
- There is always a need for anyone that can do a simple job thoroughly
- There are things you can do to prepare yourself – to be desirable
- orderly work habits
- ability to bring any job to a conclusion
- drawing feasibility
- lettering
- a presentation that ‘reads’ well
- willingness to do outside work and study on a problem…
— (via notes on talks at University of California, January 1949)