Material Choices
Starbucks, books, and clothes.
I drove by a Starbucks the other day and was struck by something.
Most of the outside was made of glass. This was a material choice.
It was winter time, so darkness had set in early, and where this particular Starbucks was located, there wasn’t much else around it.
Since it was open when I drove by, all the light from the inside shone through the glass to the outside.
It looked like a lighthouse. A literal beacon of comfort.
The material choice evoked a feeling.
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Pick up any book, crack it open, and you’ll notice a few things.
The font type, the font size, the space between the lines, and the width of the margins.
These are all material choices.
Compare how you feel looking at a book that has small font, densely packed, with tight margins, to a book that is the opposite.
Each evoke different feelings.
***
I own several colours of the exact same t-shirt.
Yet this past season, when I had to facilitate a particular kind of workshop at work, I found myself wanting to wear just one colour.
Similarly, I own several colours of the exact same workout clothes.
Yet whenever I’m doing a rowing test (once every six weeks), I choose to wear the same combination of colours.
Colours are material choices. They evoke feelings.
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Material choices are all around us.
What we choose, often dictates how we feel.
That means if you want to feel different, choose different.
