n 1580 Michel de Montaigne published Essais, the first appearance of the essay, a word which translates from medieval French to “to try, to test, to assay.” Montaigne’s goal for his Essais was to think about the wide and weird parts of being human.  

“Of Sadness and Sorrow,” “Of Conscience,” “Of Smells.” “Of Imagination.” “Of Thumbs.”

In each of these reflections, he was taking ideas out for a walk, letting them pirouette in his mind. Professing his own fallibility, unafraid of doubt, skepticism, and self-delusion. They are tests. Experiments. Looking at these slices of life from a different angle, seeing what he could learn.

Sadness, conscience, and smells are immutable parts of being human, but the way we experience these things change. Change in line with culture, with technology, with new forms of social organization.

IDEO is curious about humans. We’re curious about the way they experience the world. And our capacity for curiosity is only as capacious as our willingness to be wrong.

Edges is where IDEO revisits the original spirit of the essay. A place to experiment, to explore our own craft. To be an engine of continued, rigorous explorations of humanity and experiments with technology.

We publish things that refuse to tell us what we already know. That reinvigorate the sensation and wonder of being human by making things which prod at the limits of what we know.

We should leave Edges wondering if there’s more to say about sadness and sorrow, about conscience, about smells, about imagination, solitude, friendship and thumbs.