Design Advice from Stephen Colbert

[Will Evans]

@Armano tweeted this today, from kip/bot/blog
From a NY Times article about Jon Stewart’s status as one of the most trusted journalists in America, a nice quote from Stephen Colbert about the craft of satire. It can apply to so many things where you are looking at the difference between amusing and brilliant, mockery and satire, good and great:

“We often discuss satire — the sort of thing he does and to a certain extent I do — as distillery,” Mr. Colbert continued. “You have an enormous amount of material, and you have to distill it to a syrup by the end of the day. So much of it is a hewing process, chipping away at things that aren’t the point or aren’t the story or aren’t the intention. Really it’s that last couple of drops you’re distilling that makes all the difference. It isn’t that hard to get a ton of corn into a gallon of sour mash, but to get that gallon of sour mash down to that one shot of pure whiskey takes patience” as well as “discipline and focus.”