Less Is More Again — A Manifesto

I trust the author is going to make a drastic example by falling on her sword and stop educating some many more designers!

You can design all the less you like. That will leave more for me design and make paying my mortgage easier.

Thanks.

I wouldn't mind less design, but how about a little less Twitter? Mindless BS content is just as bad as BS design. I was very sad to see the T-word in the "Observed" column today. Such a stupid bandwagon to jump on.

This hopeless writing is a case of "should be writing less."

Or perhaps, like Behrens, we should shut up and embed our manifesto in our designs instead of yet another reactionary text.

Or, if we must write a manifesto, perhaps we should take a queue from the contemporary age and include some specificity with our polemics.

What "things" are over-designed? Are a few star-chitected buildings and over-priced objects representative of an entire field? Perhaps "things" are "poorly-designed" because there is so much more to design nowadays? Or, perhaps, things aren't poorly designed; perhaps technology is used for a purpose, and perhaps reactionary histrionics bore me silly?

Cemetery disco: Morris, Loos, Alberti, Vasari, Gropius AND Shakespeare are all spinning in their graves.

Meanwhile, would someone at Design Observer care to proofread this, fix the grammar and, er — wait, why was this incoherent rant even passed for publication in the first place?

Maybe our challenge as designers is to focus more on using the new technology in an appropriate manner for the user experience or the audience we are trying to connect to. Twitter has its place as a communication medium but older analog tools like letter press printing are still relevant and more engaging in some circumstances. I think Flash is one technology that has amazing potential and is often used badly—but let's not kill the designers yet.

The proposed approach towards designing less—getting rid of all designers—is obviously paradoxical, but I think I understand and I agree. More often than not, it is the non-designer who wants to add more to an object, message, or piece of communication—something that needs to be designed. As students of design, we were taught how to remove the proverbial ten pounds of shit. But without training, the novice with software inevitably has the urge to try something, anything really. And that anything usually leads to whatever that particular software has to offer, for example excessive drop shadows and beveled edges. Designers fumble around in the beginning, but eventually learn by trying new things and observing, and being taught what works, what communicates. We separate design from technology. By removing all designers, the world would ultimately add and add and add until nothing would be usable, understandable, there would be too much information, and too much design to comprehend.
It's an interesting concept, and I thank you for sharing this view. It reminded me a little bit of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. If you have every read it, I think you might understand that comparison. In this instance, it would be the designers who would return to clean up shop after everything has crumbled.

What's wrong with excess?

There's a puritanical element in much design writing - Perhaps a leftover from the 19thC muscular christianity.

Can't we do better than a one size fits all solution

Next thing it'll be a ban on black forest cake

Write less, design more…

For more constructive - and less provocative - ideas about less design, don't hesitate to read Ben Terrett's I'm a Designer, Use Me Better and check Philippe Starck on TED.
The subject is important, so don't hesitate to dig more than this writing.

I hope the follow up to this touches on the contextless.

Its impossible to agree or disagree with almost anyone of these notions. We say we want to update Morris and Loos, but what about them needs to be updated? Their visual approaches, their social theories, both? I'm not sure from what's said. We love Gropius for making us shut up and and make, but he was just as complicit in the Terminator-ization of the Industrial Revolution as anyone. I could argue that we should update Post-modernism and just leave it as that, nut I think if we've learned anything, is that in this complex world we live in now, there's no way to make it plain in 250 words or less draped in vagueness, much less one person do so. I'm hoping from here on out we can obsess over DIALOGUES the way the past century obsessed over Manifestoes.

Design is dead! Long live design!

I think this is a great piece. Whether I agree or disagree is irrelevant to the argument. Surely we need to have our notions/beliefs challenged regularly or we become complacent sheep, no? Otherwise we just keep on ploughing the same rut until we become blinkered fanatics – have a look at religion and see where that gets us.
Keep it up DO.
NB: Although it has no bearing on their professional attributes we also need to contextualise our heroes – Loos died a penniless paedophile, Eric Gill used to rodger his daughter and his dog. Not criticizing, just observing.

In the absence of good design there is only bad design not no design at all.

I think the article is very true and valid. 'Kill the designers' should not be taken literally but as a metaphor. Yes, we really do need ask that very basic question before doing any thing,"Does this thing really need designing?" In their enthusiasm to design, designers sometimes make things worse than they were before. Design needs to move from the superfluous, to the more basic needs of man. We should design better public transport systems, better school curriculum, better amenities, better cities, architecture that needs less energy, the list is endless.

As you rightly pointed out, a million tools exist today, so designers are simply using them without questioning whether they really need to. Design should be solving problems, not making society and ourselves into a consumerist society, which we have already become. Design is about fulfilling genuine needs, not creating a hundred more needs. If design is to make life on earth better, which I believe is the original intention of design, then the very nature and definition of design needs to change and adapt to the new challenges we have set for ourselves. In some ways design got us in the mess we are in today, but only design can get us out.

@Jw I too read this with an eye to Twitter and FB. "We embrace technology because it is there...New tools must be exploited; here, design says 'look what I can do!'" Social media's popularity just because it's there?

And to the article, I think the world IS moving to becoming more "designful." I see a mindfulness to design, and not over-design, particularly online. But rather than "kill all the designers," who do you think has the talent and skills to use these new tools? Great design may look effortless but it is not.

Humans shape things, a design-less world can only exist where we haven't been.

The writer is trying to sound so cool that the message is unclear. This very article is over-designed and communicates less. What exactly is the message?

Yes, although less IS more, I think it's just all about the appropriateness to the subject matter.

Yes I agree with Designscene's comment.

I think part of the idea that this article is trying to convey is that perhaps today's designers depend too much on the technological tools available, which can limit their creativity to the limitations of these tools, or over embellish their designs because these tools allow them to do so.

Its an interesting yet drastic thought. To justify our presence, our existence as designers is to compare ourselves to the cave painters and the dwelling makers. Being a designer from a, developing country, I see the excesses of design, tonnes and tonnes of plastic waste, stacks and stacks of fancy food in the malls, that come in the wake of consumerism.

Life was simpler earlier, people were less greedy.

All the same, the developed world, seemingly, already done with its overconsumption, is trying to find answers. A proclamation like this article invites interesting viewpoints, which is probably not any manifesto, but a step in an evolutionary cycle...

Unfortunately, Twitter is not BS. I wish it were. It's as BS as the iPhone or Facebook. We all have to get used to it (or its successor.)

Rant or not, the article falsely assumes ALL design is done strictly by trained (let alone "competent") designers. In today's world of excess and me-too-ism, anyone and everyone with a breath of creative urge is already a practising designer - whether graphic, industrial, web, interior, etc. I have yet to see a profession so weak-kneed and poorly defined as what we generically call "design" today.

The excess junk out there is due to this field's "free for all" approach and lack of selectivity and barriers to entry. We can only wish our built and printed material for consumption today was ALL done by truly professional designers. And it's getting worse.

Read Hal Niedwieczki's 2004 book "Hello, I'm Special" for more on this. Hell, EVERYONE is a creative today, didn't you know!

Designing is so challenging because of our broad selection of skills and tools require us to be more experimental, but society and the Design world demand us to be minimal.

I am totally against the idea of putting a hold on design. The world would be so boring if there were no designers to make things appealing to observers. I am not worried about a loss of design though. Design will never go away, humans are naturally creative and they will always strive to make their environment pleasing to them. It could be a graphic designer making a new billboard, or an architect creating a new stunning building. Design is everywhere and in everything and there is no way to get rid of it. Even if the people who are doing design work today stop, someone would step in to fill the void. Design isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I did enjoy reading the article and I think it is a good thought to voice. I always enjoy the posts that make me think. Thanks for the article and let me know how many people would have read it if this website didnt have any designers.

Designers fear democratization of design tools, often citing examples where templates or ornamentation attempt to pass for thoughtful and clear communication. This is more of an internal dread of the other "D," Decoration, and fear of the accompanying soullessness that may result. Our remedies against such excess, whether or not the proposed threat is currently on the rise, typicaly center on educating our cultural tastemakers (journalists, educators, other designers) on the issues involved.

On the other hand, I can't help feeling that elevating the confluence of a series of shorter-term trends into a full-blown crisis feels a bit elitist in its tone. Perhaps this is the inherent challenge of being an industry of professional outsiders. We can't solve problems without finding them first.

In this regard, we're not too dissimilar from the Orkin man offering homeowners a free termite inspection.

With apologies to Gertrude Stein, what was the question?

Design is problem-solving.

If we kill all problem-solvers the would would be a barren rock devoid of all life, for every creature, from single-cell organisms to humans use the tools at its disposal to create and to solve problems.

Weird. I can't believe I'm the only commenter who thought the post was sarcastic. I'd have to hear from the writer themselves that it was not to convince me otherwise.

How am I the only person who thinks this?

I agree with Adam, at this point in society, we are surrounded, or even smothered by design. Everyone is a designer in today's terms - creating a solution/working around a certain problem... I feel that this is causing a larger problem... bad design etc.

How could we ever live in a designless world? Our clothes, our food, our cities, our streets, our work, our schools, our churches, our shoes, our underwear, everything has been designed. There is some sort of order established by someone else. Therefore if we lived in a designless world, we would be living like wild animals, no rules, no order no structure. It is essential that our lives have some type of design incorporated.

Can't there be some sort of equilibrium? Can't we, as designers take all the fun and glorious technology at our fingertips and be able to use it in a manner so NOT to over design? There's so much crap design in this world that it's up to us to fix it. I hate how anyone and everyone just thinks they can get a computer, put adobe on it and there you go they're a designer. It's so much more than that.
We need to be able to design and redesign the poorly designed in order to make the world a better place..a designless world is completely out of the question.

I agree with Lindsey M. We need to have a balance. We cannot do away with design, but we can do away with a lot of crappy designed objects which are not doing anything for us except exploiting resources, and making us more and more into a consumerist society. the developed world has reached the saturation point, with hundreds of 'things' that nobody really needs, and are in fact just helping destroy the planet.

Well said, John Rudolph! I completely agree and see it the same way. Couldn't have said it better myself.

" The proposed approach towards designing less—getting rid of all designers—is obviously paradoxical, but I think I understand and I agree. More often than not, it is the non-designer who wants to add more to an object, message, or piece of communication—something that needs to be designed. As students of design, we were taught how to remove the proverbial ten pounds of shit. But without training, the novice with software inevitably has the urge to try something, anything really. And that anything usually leads to whatever that particular software has to offer, for example excessive drop shadows and beveled edges. Designers fumble around in the beginning, but eventually learn by trying new things and observing, and being taught what works, what communicates. We separate design from technology. By removing all designers, the world would ultimately add and add and add until nothing would be usable, understandable, there would be too much information, and too much design to comprehend.
It's an interesting concept, and I thank you for sharing this view. It reminded me a little bit of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. If you have every read it, I think you might understand that comparison. In this instance, it would be the designers who would return to clean up shop after everything has crumbled."

People (should) design - not computers -
The next time someone (an newbie architect, a design-software-reseller) tells me the computer 'does it for you' - listen - because I plan to scream, loudly.

If I understand the article correctly, it actually isn't about design at all, it's about our need to consume less, and grow less or more cleverly. Can't be such a bad thing, can it?

Desserts rule. I'll go to war over them.

Paul

It is a good essay but I thınk auther's attitude is quiet romantic rahter than reality

I don't feel this is a romantic notion at all; we are part of a cycle of obsolescence created by industrial companies in the early part of the twentieth century to induce greater consumption.
I feel a little like HAL in 2001 but the problem is not just the novice designer but also the consumer who seems addicted to novelty and believes their every whim should be indulged. Products need to be useful, economical and beautiful, not constantly novel.

"I'm talking to you internet."

There are many valid arguments that could be made about the detrimental impacts of professional designers. This article presents none of those arguments.

A form of Manifesto is a dead form. And less was more, my dear author, 100 years ago.
Good design is always about joining the content, the wearer, the audience. "How" is a question of creative leap and sensibility. No theory can supplement that.

Would you shake down human natural desire to create for some cheap, artificial puritanism?

I have no words.

"A bad design is irrelevant. It is superficial, pretentious" A design servers a function.

I believe the writer may have confused the concept of ornamentation with design.

Interestingly as a student, this is the subject of my upcoming thesis. Talking about the cyclical nature of ornamentation with the arrival and integration of computers. At the moment I believe we are heading into another puerile state of 'less is more', which (if history repeats itself) is always a prediction of a new medium.

In the 1990s Roger Black noted that magazine design in the 1980’s was being replaced by a new concern for simplicity .‘We are experiencing a revival of the sixties, helvetica and grids instead of torn paper and randsom-note typography.’ He also states that this backward move ‘towards functionalism is an important preperation for the future, when designers will be called upon… to guide readers/viewers through texts whose structure is not yet known.’ As in, we as designers are unconsciously preparing for the arrival of new mediums, new forms of space, different dimensions of representing information, perhaps its already here. We've seen iPhone and more and more elaborate ways of advertising on spaces are being concocted every day. A need to reduce graphically is inevitable if we are to engage with new technologies. Holograms anyone?

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