Drew Davies:

“I have a couple of different kinds of conscious awareness of design, both that end up centering around Legos.

In my childhood, I remember having an overwhelming sense of the simplicity yet infinite expandability of Legos. While it would be years before I fully understood the concept of “industrial design”, it was clear to me that here was a building system in a class all its own. It has to be my first conscious understanding of something being “designed” better than the other options.

More concretely, on the graphic design front, Legos also afforded me my first conscious awareness of good graphic design. At the time, Lego had apparently made some kind of cross-marketing arrangement with oil company Shell. Their logo was plastered all over anything “city” related: trucks, boats, buildings. I remember being enamored with just how solid, strong and cool the Shell logo was.”

Kyle Heinemann:

“I started noticing good design in high school the same year I started thinking about what I wanted study when I got to college. These two band t-shirts stand out in my memory as something that looked much better than the other stuff I owned. I was proud to wear them. I’m not even sure if I would still consider them good design—I think so—but after 12 years, nostalgia and personal attachment clouds my judgement.

(The blue shirt is actual licensed tour merchandise. The white one could be a RIP-off for all I know—I picked it up at the local music store.)

My three-year old daughter, on the other hand, is already calling out good logos, like Target and McDonald’s.”

Adrian Hanft:

“The only thing I can think of is looking at cd jackets. My earliest memories are looking at my parents Simon and Garfunkel “Sound of Silence” record. I don’t know if I really put it together that it was made by a graphic designer, though. I don’t think I really understood what a graphic designer was even in high school. I guess for me it was a slow gradual evolution.”