Creatures of Habit

Habit: “A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.”

One of the lasting themes of the human condition is getting into a rut, realizing you’re in a rut, and trying to get out of said rut. Some ruts are deeper than others and some are much broader than others. One could argue that the climate crisis is the result of one long, destructive rut. And of course, the deeper the rut and the longer you’ve been in it the more painful and difficult it is to get out of it.

If you’re a change maker – a person or group looking to upend the status quo (and designers are indeed change makers) – often the biggest challenge you face is getting people to change the way they do things, or the way they’ve done things for many years, even generations. Mostly, this is not an easy job. Emiliano Zapata, Bucky Fuller, Rachel Carson, Harvey Milk– let’s just say there was lots of jail time and name calling while these folks were challenging cultural habits. And yet, they were game changers. The world is different because of their persistence. They were, in fact, able to change people’s behavior.

This blog is about cultural patterns and the habits we enmesh ourselves in as well as the attempts – through design, art, social constructs, politics, and relationships – to break free of those habits. What are you doing right now? Why?

Sam is the director of publishing for frog where he oversees frog's global content, editorial, and digital publishing strategy. He is also the editor of design mind, frog's print and online media platform. Sam is the author of numerous books of non fiction and has written for Dwell, Metropolis, GOOD, and other magazines.