Mark Porter

One of the reasons I’ve been so quiet recently is that I’ve just finished a 416 page book for the River Café. When you do a book like this, the publisher is officially your client, but it’s the author you have to satisfy. The River Café authors have very strong opinions, and I’ve probably compromised more with them than I have on any other project, beacuse it’s their book, I respect their opinions (up to a point) and I know that it will never come out if I don’t. But what makes it really exhausting is that they have a work style which Ive encountered a lot over the years — they will not stop changing things until the job ships.

In my experience, there’s always a moment when you know something its right. Sometimes its the first thing you try — you just slap it down and you know it’s good. More often it takes weeks or months of graft, and it can just be the last detail that locks everything into place. Either way, the trick is to know it when you see it and stop tinkering. But there’s another school that believes that you can always make something better.

The most extreme example I’ve encountered was probably Tibor Kalman. There’s no doubt Tibor was a genius of sorts, a restless iconoclastic mind who challenged every convention, and I learnt an enormous amount from him. But even though he could come up with brilliant ideas, he was incapable of letting them stand, and would only stop fiddling with things when the courier was at the door waiting to take the job to the printer. There’s a story in his book about a layout I did with him which went through seventeen passes. I thought it started getting worse at around version 2, and although we had a pretty good relationship we almost came to blows over it. In the book he, graciously, admitted that I was right.

The River Cafe authors take a similar approach, as do some of my colleagues at The Guardian. It frustrates me because it goes against all my instincts, and in design your instinct is the most important thing you have. I believe in craft, and refining the details. And I admire the quest for perfection. But I also believe that you have to be alert for the moment when something is right, and when you see it, it’s time to stop!