Beauty Will Save the Airport

Somehow this week, I ended up in Little Rock, Arkansas. When I land somewhere new, I do my little airport ritual: slow down, take it all in. I watch people. I scan the restaurants. I peek at where other planes are headed, what people are wearing, what apps they’re using, and what billboards are around.

Sometimes I leave with ideas and inspiration. And sometimes I almost throw up because a PowerPoint-designed airport billboard assaults my eyes.

Seriously… how do you create a monstrosity like that?

Dassault Falcon makes business jets (undeniably cool), and they have a big facility in Little Rock, so of course, they have a billboard. But if I needed any push to go to Gulfstream, that ad delivered it. Fully. No more Falcon.

Literally a stock photo + a QR code probably from one of those scam $600/year “generators” (instead of using the free one I built) + no sense of style or originality or desire...

Just…painful.

AKKKKK ARGHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS THE GRAPHIC DESIGN EQUIVALENT OF STUBBING EVERY TOE AT ONCE AKKKKKKKKK.

When I landed and saw the billboard, I took a photo.

“Maybe I’ll design a new one and email it to the CEO,” I said.

Fast-forward a few days: I’m back at the airport. Thanks to Frontier Airlines’ generosity[1], I suddenly have three extra hours. The billboard ambushes me again.

So, I called security and told them the Falcon Billboard assaulted me. They thought I was joking, found it pretty funny, and even laughed. But I kept insisting until their smiles faded, and now here I am, writing this from a psych ward next to a few folks who are sad that ChatGPT got upgraded and they lost their girlfriends.

Okay, maybe that didn’t happen.

What actually went down was an all-out, no-holds-barred duel between me and the billboard. A full-on, aggressive showdown. Spoiler alert: The billboard lost; I won.

Anyways, here are the designs.

Oh, and one more thing.

To the Falcon people: I truly don’t care. Steal the designs, the ideas, the concepts, take whatever you want. Just please, I’m begging you: please, please, PLEASE make the world more beautiful!!![2]

Whenever you have the opportunity, don’t ruin people’s lives and experiences of the world by having horrible, soulless design. Design is one of the most powerful forces in the world. USE IT!!!! Use it to teach me something like the fact that Falcon is based in Little Rock or how expensive they are. Use it to inspire me like how your planes are engineered to fly. Use it to make me laugh. Make me wonder. Make me feel angry, or joyful, or curious, or really anything. Just make me feel something!!! ANYTHING! Ideally, curiosity, but literally anything works better than what that billboard did.

Just don’t make me feel nothing or even worse disgust.

Because that last billboard? It did exactly that. It left a void. And that’s the worst thing design can do.

Okay. NOW here are the designs. I made over 70+, but here are my favorites (full list below):

YOU CAN FIND ALL THE DESIGNS HERE:

Dassault Falcon, in return, I will accept:

1. a thank-you,

2. a tour of your facilities (please pick me up in one of your jets), and

3. a Falcon 6X (okay, don’t roll your eyes… but at least give me a 20% discount, set to expire in 10 years).

You’re welcome,

Juan David Campolargo

P.S. Look, airport billboards hit different with a proper Arkansas soundtrack.

P.P.S. Thanks to the future mayor of Little Rock for hosting me for a great weekend.

In other news, lots of progress with The Jailbroken Guide to the University. Coming in hot!!!!!!!!!!!

If you’re into interesting ideas (like the one you just read), join my Updates, and I’ll send you new essays right when they come out.

Notes

[1]

Also, yes, I was flying Frontier because, well, I love the adrenaline, the cheapest fare, the random delays that allow me to start interesting projects, and the 12-hour layover that allows me to finish them. Love you, Frontier!

On another note, please, whatever you do, don’t read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy during a Frontier flight. Trust me, that absurd philosophy stuff hits way too close to reality up there, and your mind will create that reality.

Just a few days ago, I was on a flight ready to take off when they announced something like, "Hey folks, slight issue—the latch on the back door broke. No worries, we’ll just put some tape on it."

Tape. Like, actual tape.

Obviously, people started panicking, but they reassured us: “Relax! It’s FAA-approved tape!” After half an hour, we're ready to roll again. But wait—another announcement: “Actually, never mind—the weather changed, and now the tape won’t work.” Great.

Then they call maintenance, fix it properly, and we're ready again. But no—just before takeoff, another call. We have to go back and switch planes altogether.

At this point, I knew better. I was not going to pull out that book again—no more Douglas Adams-inspired absurdity. Book closed, crisis avoided, and soon after, I finally reached my destination.

[2]

Let’s talk about beauty for a moment.

I’m not talking about beauty in merely an aesthetic sense.

I’m not talking about photons hitting your eyes or sound waves reaching your ears. No, no, no!!!

Beauty will save the world

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Instead, it’s the kind of beauty that Fyodor Dostoevsky described: beauty as something powerful enough to genuinely change you when you encounter it.

He didn’t say “truth.”

He didn’t say “right.”

He didn’t say any other words but BEAUTY.

When Dostoevsky talked about beauty, he wasn't just saying something looks nice. He meant that when you call something beautiful, whether you know it or not, you're also making a moral judgment. You're tapping into something bigger, something meaningful—connecting that thing to deeper ideals, higher truths, and even the universe itself.

Beauty, in this sense, isn't just about appreciating what's in front of you. It's about feeling the connections between everything and letting that realization push you toward curiosity, discovery, and love. It's a reminder that you're always connected to something greater than yourself.

We all know this feeling. When a musician describes something we can't quite articulate, or when we read a poem or piece of writing that shakes us deeply, or even encounter scientific theories that move us profoundly, although we can't exactly explain why.

Now imagine if Falcon had cared a little about beauty and its ability to stir an emotion in us, or not even that, just caring a tiny bit about the unique opportunity to create wonder or awe or joy, and to connect us to something greater than ourselves, to connect us to that greater source of the universe, imagine how much more magical the world would be, how beautiful it would be.