less but better

after an interesting chat with a NYC based coach the other day, I got thinking about my personal values and how I’d apply them to any potential ventures of mine.

One I’ve somewhat unknowingly subscribed to is Less But Better. It’s partly a way of indulging my expensive taste in clothing but it has actually permeated many of my approaches to life.

I hate waste and wasted effort. If I’m doing something, I want to do it quickly and I want it to be good. Sometimes perfectionism means that the thing is never finished, hence my sporadic posting on here. Less But Better also amusingly contrasts with my self-imposed challenge to write on here regularly, to get in the habit of ‘shipping’.

In my ignorance, I was unaware that Less But Better is the title of a book by famed designer Dieter Rams, a man whose work has deeply influenced the world around us and my iPhone and laptop I carry with me every day owe everything to his vision.

Rams had 10 Principles of Good Design. They are:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.

It’s incredible how these rules are not only applicable to design. The reason I’m musing on them is partly a trite conversation I had the other day with someone who said they spent an hour on the cross trainer in the gym ‘to burn calories’.

If you find the cross trainer fun then fair enough. If you’re doing it merely as a calorie burning exercise then it seems foolish. You could achieve the solution in a myriad of other ways. Perhaps eat less calories, negating the need for the dull hour of slow punishment.

Perhaps you could do some other form of exercise that would be more efficient? There are plenty, the cross trainer is low in the hierarchy of useful exercises.

Anyway, let’s look at each rule and see where they could apply elsewhere or be otherwise interpreted.

Good design is innovative.

Innovative of course means creative and new. Could it also mean to think around a solution, like the cross trainer example above?

Could it also mean to retain a beginner’s mindset? Innovation sometimes comes from left field, where subject matter experts don’t look due to their myopia - read Range for many examples. The world’s biggest, riskiest creators in Elon Musk and Kanye West behave like beginners; Musk ‘reasons from first principles’ while West is ’always the 5 year old of something’.

Innovation doesn’t have to mean ‘new’ - it can just mean different.

Good design makes a product useful.

It certainly does. When you’re about to buy something, think to yourself ‘Will I use this?’ If the answer is not ‘Yes, regularly’, then you could perhaps consider whether it is necessary. It doesn’t mean it’s badly designed, it could just be not designed for you. Leave it for someone else.

Good design is aesthetic.

Does whatever it is ‘spark joy’ for you? Is what you’re doing beautiful, or at least in pursuit of beauty? Are you trying to move beautifully, draw a beautiful picture or make your house beautiful? You should pursue the beautiful, not settle for ok, while bearing in mind that beauty and perfection are not the same thing.

Good design helps us to understand a product.

If something is intuitive, you know what it is or how to use it without much in the way of instruction, then the is good design. What can you design around your life to make you easier to understand and engage with? Good teaching is good design, good coaching likewise. A well written novel is good design, leading the reader to an understanding of a person or a place. Where could you aid others to understand?

Good design is unobtrusive.

Good design doesn’t need to be garish or loud. It doesn’t need to make noise or a fuss. It also should proceed serenely, taking you on a journey from place to place without difficulty. Efficiency is good design. How can you be more efficient? In how you look after your health, or pursue your creative projects? Not having time for something is bad design, if something feels jarring in your day, it’s bad design. Where can you smooth your own path?

Good design is honest.

Good design is itself - it doesn’t purport to be something else. Good design is fair and unbiased. Think about how the best teams are honest places - the All Blacks or the SAS. They encourage professional honesty in terms of feedback but also emotional honesty in terms of supporting one another and laying their formative experiences bare. Good leadership requires vulnerability and the honesty to sometimes say ‘I don’t know’. Good teams are good design in action.

Good design is durable.

Fragility is poor design. Longevity indicates relevance and fortitude, things that have power and use for people, long after their creation. If possible, good design goes beyond durable and becomes Antifragile, able to learn from and adapt to stress. Where in life are you fragile? Address this.

Good design is consequent to the last detail.

A lack of detail is a failure of design - good anything is not lazy. A lack of detail is laziness. Sometimes, addressing detail is boring; the minutiae of a physical movement or the tail end of your monthly household budget. Good design is beholden on you not neglecting anything.

Good design is concerned with the environment.

This is more pertinent than ever. Do no harm. If you’ve made something that has consequences for the environment then it’s not good design. This could also be an emotional environment, your family or a community that you’re a part of. Nothing exists in a vacuum. If you are causing implications for the world around you then poor design has crept in to your existence.

Good design is as little design as possible.

Via Negativa. What can you take away to make your life simpler? Design implies a problem - it exists to pose a solution. If you can take away your need for design then do so. The simpler your life, the more elegant it is, the better you’ve designed it. A lack of artifice suggests honesty, clarity and purpose - hallmarks of good design.

Back to purity, back to simplicity.

I beat myself to my own point here. Good design is pure, clean and simple. Where can you implement this purity into your existence? Have you got clarity around your day, your health, your work, your creative practice? Are your possessions simple, do they fulfil your needs without ‘irritable striving’ or ‘sound and fury’?

"The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life because everything is pulling you to be more and more complex." -Yvon Chouinard.

Simple sounds like easy. But it isn’t. Simplicity is a triumph of design. Aim for simplicity and you’ll find truth. And isn’t that what we’re all after?