The quality of the things unseen

In Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, there is an often quoted story about the likely source of Job's focus on craftsmanship: his adoptive father, Paul Jobs. “I thought my dad’s sense of design was pretty good,” Jobs told Isaacson, “because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him.” Jobs showed the fence to Isaacson and touched the boards of the inside of the fence, saying “He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.” He said that his father refused to use poor wood for the back of cabinets or to build a fence that wasn’t constructed as well on the back side as it was the front. Jobs likened it to using a piece of plywood on the back of a beautiful chest of drawers. “For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” This philosophy formed Jobs goal to manufacture Apple products with the same care, even in the details that would be invisible to the user.

Most visitors to our office will not see the back of our Exhibitor Magazine Find It Top 40 Award. They will probably not take it off our wall to read the pithy description mounted to the back of the frame that describes the "wicked-cool" platinum album, or read that the award recognizes the Deckel & Moneypenny team as one of the top exhibit producers in the United States and Canada by the leading publication in the industry.

As impressive as the "not-so-subtle" front of this award is, it's the back that truly speaks volumes.