The web is beautiful, but also huge. And growing, and faster, and harder. At Quartzo, we decided to do things our way —for a change . This is how we make a web that doesn’t trap you. This is how we want to make internet great again.
We work on projects that we believe ourselves, in a way we'd work on ours.
Our approach is an interwoven process between design, development, and communication as part of a single journey.
If you don't really believe less is more, nothing will ever be enough.
04
Instinct is a tool/compass
Rational thinking is ten thousand years old. Instinct is four billion. Listen to the voice of your guts.
05
Collide ideas, not heads
Collisions release a lot of energy —and that creates anything from stars to concussions. Hold discussions with a light heart.
Art can be productive if it meets a purpose. A purpose can drive art if met with an adjective approach.
The brain is hungry for stimuli. Give it lots and it will always crave for more. Give it enough and it stays intellectually fit.
We commit to making things that are low on dopamine spikes.
Constraints show what the way is.
Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you’ve got.
[…]
Writers use constraints to force creativity all the time. Shakespeare reveled in the limitations of sonnets […] Haiku and limericks also have strict rules that lead to creative results.
(REWORK, 2010, p. 67)
09
Make a mess, then tidy up
There's no building without dust, no synthesis without analysing. There's no dust without cleaning, no analysis without synthesising.
10
Efficiency over performance
Performance is done on a stage by actors, or by athletes during a very short period of their lives. Efficiency is applying essential thinking towards a practical purpose. It is a state of spirit.
Elephants’ pregnancies last 22 months. Great things take time to mature.
Elephants’ pregnancies last 22 months. Great things take time to mature.
13
Decisions are transient
The ability to change course is one of the big advantages of being small.
(REWORK, 2010, p. 251)
The expectation of immediate response is everywhere. Real-time everything isn’t human-scale, yet that’s how so many work and communicate these days. Not us. We think urgency is overrated, and ASAP is poison. Real-time is the wrong time most of the time.
37signals.com/9
The web is our media of choice. It's free, bold, and (once it was) truly revolutionary. We defend it's freedom. We value protocols over apps; hypertext over scripts; bare-metal over cloud; small tech over big tech; meaningful experiences over speculative pixels.
