This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago. Visit the Product Blog for more information on our products.

These are great, but I have a tiny gripe. The audio on the 95 one is so low volume or quality, I could barely understand Philip speaking half the time. There’s no such problem on the 90 one. Who encoded these interviews?

I love the smoking ad at the beginning of the Wright interview. Great stuff.

Walter, I think Philip is just really soft spoken at 95.

“They just don’t make people like FLW anymore. A paragon of confidence, a wellspring of opinion. What a treasure.”

Actually I think 37Signals falls into that realm quite a bit. Perhaps your too humble to realize it, but its quite true. Many of your ideas and approaches to business, work, life, and design that have been developed in your blog are spot on.

Since some readers egos can’t handle when 37S gets a compliment, DHH & JF, get the troll monitor ready.

Great interview, the last one had very low audio as reported. Do you have any other interviews to recommend? Not just architects, but typographers, graphic designers and interior designers – old and wise people who have done their craft through decades. They have so much experience, such an source of inspiration and wisdom.

Thanks, Jason!

The FLW Interview is outstanding. I wonder how many of us will reach such a high age and will still poses such a clear and focused spirit. Also the clip conveys how much has changed in just 50 years of time, some for better, some for worse. I love the scene where the interviewer tries to offer a cigarette to FLW .

I’m no expert, but one of the key foundations of Frank Lloyd Wright’s approach to design is that Form follows Function. That is that design should follow requirements and not allow aesthetics to get in the way. That is the reason that I admire Wrights work and that is the same reason that I admire 37 Signals. There is a lovely Frank Lloyd Wright quotation on Organic architecture [design].

Messed up that link, so here’s the quotation:

‘Organic architecture more or less means organic society. An architecture inspired by this ideal cannot acknowledge the laws imposed by aestheticism or mere taste, just as an organic society should reject any external imposition on life that contrast with nature and the character of the man who has found his work and the place where he can be happy and useful in a form of existence suited to him.’

Thank you very much for bringing the Frank Lloyd Wright interview to our attention.

I had no idea how great the man was. This is the person that one should aspire to be. Just watching the interview is inspiring. This is the best post ever on SVN , and that means a lot.

P.S. Among many gems, there is one that applies to this blog (and especially to a certain webframework author :-), too. FLW ’s definition of arrogance should be solace for any original, self-confident and outspoken thinker in the world.