🔥 #71 - Internships!

Hi Friends!

I need a favour, if you have enjoyed reading this newsletter with my occasional design thoughts, can you please forward this to friends and family who might find it useful?

thanks!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Good Ideas Look Spontaneous

Thats not the full line, this is

“Good ideas look spontaneous, until you see the strategy behind them”

My mentor told me this, when I was stressing about not having that creative spark like some of my other friends and colleagues. What they wanted me to do, was obvious, trust the process, trust the data, let that lead you to the water. Sometimes we tend to get caught up with the frustration of not having ideas, like a creative factory.

The best ideas feel accidental.

As if they appeared in the shower.
As if someone just followed a whim.
As if brilliance struck without warning.

It’s rarely true.

Good ideas look spontaneous because the strategy behind them is invisible. The polish hides the preparation. The clarity hides the constraint.

What feels effortless is usually engineered.

In design, we’re seduced by the final output, the sleek interface, the clever campaign, the perfectly timed launch. But the work you don’t see is what makes the work you do see feel inevitable.

Creativity without structure is chaos.
Structure without creativity is bureaucracy.

The real magic lives in the tension between the two!

I looked around for examples to make this tangible.

Real-World Ideas That Looked “Obvious” (But Weren’t)
LEGO - This one is close to me. The amount of work we put into the design and strategy behind every new LEGO Brick is staggering. It involves multiple teams, organisations and people to bring one new shape to life. The “System of interlocking bricks” is our strategy.

Airbnb – In the early days the founders discovered listings with better photos converted more. So they personally flew to New York and photographed hosts’ apartments themselves. Conversions doubled. It looked like product-market fit. It was disciplined experimentation.

Netflix – The shift from DVD rentals to streaming feels inevitable in hindsight. It wasn’t. It required betting against their own successful business model. What looks visionary now was a calculated, high risk strategic pivot.

⸻

The lesson?

If an idea feels obvious, someone did the hard thinking.

As designers, our job isn’t to wait for sparks.
It’s to build systems where sparks are more likely to land.

Spontaneity is often just strategy done well enough to look natural.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Design Jobs

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

All internship roles are within LEGO Design and based out of Billund, Denmark. All roles have a paid stipend and support with relocation for students.

1. Concept and Model Design Internship

2. Element Design Internship

3. Interaction Design Internship

4. Sound Design Internship

5. System in Play Internship

6. Graphic Design Internship

7. Visual Communication Design Internship

8. Building Experience Design Internship

1. Influencer Marketing Internship - NYC USA

2. Social Content Creator Internship - NYC USA

1. Product Design Intern - Palo Alto, California

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Love,
Sid.

Who am I?
I am a Design Director at The LEGO Group and live in Denamrk. I love it when you write to me. Especially if you have job tips or if you have read one of my little pieces and have another topic idea!

Write me! Linkedin 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -