An interviewer once asked the celebrated designer Charles Eames how he dealt with the issue of accepting compromises in his work. "I have never been forced to accept compromises," Eames replied, "but I have willingly accepted constraints."
The answer is a subtle, even wily, one; it's the kind of statement whose truth slowly creeps on you and changes the way you think. Eames, in effect, issued a challenge to all designers to regard constraints not as forces that erode design, but as the very...
