My pottery journey

I started throwing pottery two years ago as a break from screens. What I did not expect was how much it would teach me about my day job.

Clay has a memory

When you throw a pot, the clay remembers every touch. If you push it too hard, it locks in tension that comes back as a wobble or a crack days later. You cannot force clay — you can only guide it.

Software is the same. Every shortcut you take in the codebase or the design file locks in a tension that shows up later as bugs, design debt, or a UX wobble you cannot explain.

Centering is everything

The first thing you learn in pottery is centering. If the clay is not centered on the wheel, nothing you do after will work. The pot will be off-balance, the walls uneven, and the rim crooked.

In design, the equivalent is research. If your understanding of the user is off-center, every screen you ship will be subtly wrong. You can polish forever, but it will never feel right.

You will fail a lot

My first ten pots were not pots. They were mud. The next ten were lopsided cups I would not give to an enemy.

In design, we are afraid to fail in public. We hide our first drafts. We polish in private. Pottery taught me that the failures are the point — they are how your hands learn.

The kiln is honest

You can hide a lot of mistakes in the throwing and the trimming. The kiln reveals everything. Cracks open. Glazes run. A pot that looked perfect comes out broken.

Production is the kiln of design. You can hide a lot in Figma. Real users on real devices on real networks will reveal every flaw you tried to ignore.

Closing

I do not think everyone should learn pottery. But I think everyone should learn a craft that exists outside a screen — something where the material pushes back, where your hands get dirty, where you cannot undo with Cmd+Z. It will make you a better designer.