Sprezzatura
“This is an archaic Italian word for being able to do your craft without a lot of visible effort. It’s a combination of elan and grace and class, sort of the opposite of loud grunts while you play tennis or a lot of whining and fuss when you help out a customer.”
I’m glad there’s a word for that. I’ve been thinking about it since I saw Kim Yu-Na win gold in Vancouver.
Her performances looked effortless, while her competitors looked stiff, the effort plain on their faces.
Great performers make their spectacular work look easy, inevitable even.
Listen to Apple’s Jonathan Ive discussing his work in Objectified. He talks about simplicity in design and the illusion of inevitability. Ive is my favorite industrial designer because he puts users first saying, “the terrible struggles we as designers and engineers had in trying to solve the problems” should be invisible.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be magic.