In praise of old-school design tools for modern brainstorming

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In praise of old-school design tools for modern brainstorming

By Francine Maroukian

Starting her career in the food industry, Francine Maroukian was catering director at The Silver Palate before launching her own business with such clients as Dean & DeLuca and the Guggenheim Museum and a lot of Manhattan VIPs.

One of them (Nancy Evans, president of Doubleday) recognized the writer in her kitchen before Francine saw it herself.

Francine would go on to create the food page at?Esquire?– every month a little personal story (how, say, her butcher knew her better than anyone and could tell what was going on in her life based on the cut of meat she purchased) alongside a carefully crafted and tested recipe. Her writing has earned a National Magazine Award and two James Beards.

Inexhaustibly creative, Francine has more ideas before her morning coffee than most of us have in a week, and she brings her inimitable personal touch to this little gem of an essay on why she prefers pen and paper to keyboard and app to develop those ideas into something that just might take hold.

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