As I’ve written here in the past, ‘simple is better than better’. Simple cuts through the clutter. It makes everything else seem overstated, over exaggerated and overhyped. Let’s take BMW for example. No one has ever confused BMW with being economical simply because they make one product – ‘the ultimate driving machine’. Or another – Geico insurance makes the simple statement ’15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance’. Geico even goes so far as to use a caveman for its spokesperson, or in other words ‘it’s so easy even a caveman could do it’ which exemplifies its simplicity.
The same is true for graphic design – perhaps you remember drawing landscapes as a kid and representing birds in the sky with a single line that dipped and came to a point in the middle? Without much detail, that line communicated a lot of ideas. Some of which might include what time of the year it was, or the time of day.
Our principals for excellence in design grounded in the Gestalt tradition of functionality and aesthetic centered around the end user.
Excellence in design is:
- aesthetic
- innovative
- honest
- long-lasting
- thorough
- simple
- understanding
- unobtrusive
Perhaps because great design is so obvious that it’s so misunderstood and not valued by our society. We underestimate the process of arriving at simplicity. Although there is some dispute, many believe that it was Mark Twain that once said ‘If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter’. The process of achieving excellence in anything, including design – is the ability to allow yourself to make mistakes. As many as it takes to find that one mistake worth keeping.