It was 1998, and after 8 years at IDEO and a long time hobby of graphic design with a love of fonts and such, I felt it was important to let Bill know that I was disappointed with the redesign of the original Paul Rand IDEO logo. I wrote Bill an honest email (aka flame from an IDEO Boston engineer) suggesting that it was too bad we spent all that time and money to simply get a slightly resized, odd mix of serif and san-serif letters in our otherwise unchanged logo. A few days later he sent me a very thoughful, gentle reply to let me know he understood my concern but that the re-design was made with utmost care (and respect for the original) and that it was now better balanced and better suited to our needs (on-line, etc) and that in time, he was confident that I would come to appreciate it. Over time, I did, and ever since then, I’ve appreciated Bill’s way – always gentle, always positive, always forward, always optimistic. Always.