Ideally, we might imagine that all design would be mindful. Alas, we know that’s not the case. Why else would it be possible to talk of “bad design”?
In a way, there is an opportunity here. There is certainly plenty of room for thoughtfulness.
“Non troppo” means “not too much” in Italian. There are a lot of things that are troppo in our world, but we also as a species have a tendency to overdo generally. We work too hard, play in self-destructive ways, and worry a lot. One instruction I have always loved seeing in a musical score is “non troppo.”
“Allegro non troppo” means “fast, but not too fast,” for example.
There’s a healthy sense of trust in an instruction like that. Trust that the musician reading the score really does know what’s right and will care enough to do what’s right.
I started Studio Non Troppo in this spirit, feeling that work, art, and life are players in the same ecosystem. We’ve seen enough of troppo; let’s see where non troppo can take us.
Doug Dunston, founder