Our urge to compile lists probably starts at age 40-something. If you are thoroughly convinced you routinely kept lists in your 20s or 30s-it didn’t happen. But the value of a list is no longer underrated. It’s our shorthand for long-term thinking. A list focuses us, sets priorities, gets things done: the grocery list, the errands-to-do list, the New Year’s resolutions list (hah! lists get old if you plan too far out).
Maintaining lists–even memorizing them–is so much a part of our culture that spontaneously recalling data often morphs into verbal volley, especially among sports enthusiasts. You’ve seen them go at it, dueling with stats. David Wallechinsky’s “The Book of Lists,” which debuted in 1977, now has a 1990s edition. B-school deans meditate in their ivy-covered towers awaiting BusinessWeek’s list of the top 10 business schools or that of U.S. News and World Report, another listmaker. And though the hit-and-miss humor of David Letterman’s top 10 is dubious, it too is a list.
The paper trail we compiled for the 30 things we love looks like some abstract work by a 3rd-grade Jackson Pollack. We wish. Art director David Syrek considered showing his list here but we may frame it anyway. It bears the marks of our labor: items penciled in, crossed out, written over, in inks of green, pink, yellow and blue.
Our list, assembled with the help of our team of writers out in the field–Lisa Skolnik, Kathy Kaplan and Lisa Cregan–covers design and designers, architecture, trends, fresh faces, new products and traditional favorites. Our choices were debated, fought for, justified. Don’t hate us for it.
On another front, the cover is the work of photographer Bill Hogan. His usual gig is shooting food photos. This time he ventured out of the studio to photograph this issue’s home cover. He’s at the top of our list.