Products aren't always designed with perfectly vertical walls.

Though seemingly minor, draft angles are instrumental to injection molding. Slight tapers to walls facilitate easy removal from a mold.

Texture, sheen and weight speak volumes before a product is even touched.

A matte finish can suggest practicality, polished metal may feel high-end. Soft-touch coatings add a note of comfort to tech gadgets, a wood texture can bring warmth. You know that a kitchen mixer is a Kitchen-Aid from across the room based on color and finish alone.

The frame around a door and the presence of a door handle communicates that you are indeed looking at a door. The frame and handle are signifiers.

The curve of a handle, its joint and the way it extends collectively affords gripping and turning, which suggest its use. These are affordances.

Some argue that prehistoric cave paintings, dating back to around 40,000 BC, are the earliest forms of design.

It's easy to debate that these were acts of art, not design. While the intent to express may be true for some, others were illustrations intended for communication.

There was a light switch that clunked in my grandparents older midwestern home.

These have become rarer over time; light switches that click and require less effort to toggle are the new standard.

The Design of Everyday Things was the first design book I read and it may be the best first design book to pick up.

I found this book by following a recommendation from another designer while I was creating an admissions portfolio for NC State's design program. It's a great book for grasping foundational design principles like usability, user-centered design and cognitive psychology.

Early projects in design school focused on the process and foundations of form and function more than a useful outcome.

Our prompt for our first major design project was to create a paper wearable that emphasized joint movements somewhere on our body. I went the other way with it and restricted joint movement by blowing up my left hand and visually constricting finger joints.

I read a story that one of Henry Dreyfuss's partners, Bill Purcell, approached another designer's concept and asked, "is it as beautiful as it looks?"

Dreyfuss is, of course, known for his human factors approach to design, emphasizing user needs and capabilities. Purcell's question echoes this philosophy. Designers should critically assess whether the aesthetic choices complement or hinder the intended user experience.

One of my favorite qualities in a physical interface is resistance.

After high school, my dad gifted me an Onkyo stereo set that he had bought years ago while in college. In my head, I can feel the smooth weight of turning the master volume knob on the receiver.

Drawing every day is particularly good advice for new designers, which is why it was stated regularly by faculty at my design college.

Sketching is the best way to communicate an idea you have because it can be done quickly and efficiently.

I write to help keep me engaged with otherwise passive thoughts and to keep tabs on what I learn, not to necessarily make a career out of design writing. I enjoy drawing too much.

This exercise is useful for me in thinking analytically about important histories, concepts, trends and voices. One of those voices I've been reading lately is Ralph Caplan.

LED lights were discovered to have a 50% increase in light extraction by applying a jagged overlayer similar to scales on lightening bug abdomens.

Velcro was inspired by burrs, which attach themselves to animals' fur to disperse seeds using microscopic hooks.

When I was a high school freshman, multimeters were used to teach students the fundamentals of electricity in our Principles of Engineering class.

I was curious about the backstory behind multimeters since they are so common in electrical work.

One of the greatest inventions for plumbing was Samuel Blanc's electric drain snake, the Roto-Rooter, patented in 1935.

Prior to this, plumbers used hooks, hand-cranked augers and plungers, which took a great deal of time and effort.

Sometimes what resonates doesn't come from a designer.

Just like with a concept that is intended for one market and fits better in another, a phrase can transcend who it is intended for. In that regard, one of my favorite people to consider is Fred Rogers.

The OXO vegetable peeler handle backstory is an icon among Human-Centered Design case studies.

It started with Sam Farber's wife struggling to use a metal vegetable peeler due to her arthritis. Sam thought to develop better kitchen tools for his wife which might benefit other people, too.

Hard plastic packaging has slowly been replaced with flexible pouches, particularly with grocery products.

For the most part, this change has been in the name of sustainability, but not all pouches are the best solution in that regard. Many of these pouches aren't easy to or possible to recycle due to the combination of using hard plastic spouts with flexible plastics, or because pouches utilize multiple layers of different material in order to preserve food products.

TVs used to have rounded corners, I wonder if that'll catch on again.

Particularly noticeable on this 1950's Philco "Princess" model 3410, old CRT TVs couldn't have a hard corner like modern LED TVs. Since LCD TVs were released, all TV corners are sharp.