With
no one around to teach you about design, what were you most mindful of about
how you spent your work time?
As you said, I was pretty much told “Do whatever you want” and then left
to my own devices. But that was actually the hardest part of it all, that I
didn’t have any criteria to go by. I think that maybe the
emphasis was on my intuitive judgment of what was cool or not. There were a lot
of times where I would start over if I felt my output wasn’t good or was lacking something. That kind of sense isn’t quantifiable, though, and doesn’t work if
there’s no one else who shares it. So in that light, it
was a huge stroke of luck for a guy like me with no proven track record being
told to do whatever he wants and just design on instinct alone.