gordon ling

Lets check this out:

Less is more - Andrea del Sarto
As you get older less is always more - Ivana Trump
More matter with less art - William Shakespeare

The art of less just always amazes me. Those Swiss designers that created their signature style back in about late 1930s - 40s based on the art of less well, should be respected. They ‘rejected’ the Constructive terms. Ignored the popular Bauhaus ideas on design. Used only mainly sans serif fonts (only Garamond was introduced later). The style includes:

1) Lines of capitals
2) Justified wither left or right
3) Cool expressive fonts
4) Significance in illustrations & type
5) Straight forward information given
6) Bla Bla Bla (Simplification of ‘I don’t know much.’)

I’m not here to preach about Swiss style. Correct me if I am wrong;
My guess is that these guys say, “Cut off all that crap. Let’s create design that works.” Functionalists. They might probably have based their design aesthetics on keeping the design looks simple. Simplicity for both visual pleasure & also reduce the risk of non-workable designs (No wander IKEA.. But still every time we go there, we meet somebody we recognize). Get my point?

My dad always advices me to live simple. Complication allows rooms for complexity issues that stand chances to disappoint. Till now, my folks don’t even actually own a ‘house’ under their name, drive huge cars with complicated controllers on their steering wheels (Which the radio volume control looks like a video game forward & backward icon) & actually hardly even buy furniture for my house back in Sitiawan. As a matter of fact, most of the furniture at my home are given by beautiful kind people.

The bible says that we came to this world naked. Naked shall we leave this world then. If you believe in heaven, would you possibly want to bring your Ibanez Jem7vwh up there? The bible for example, simply 1 book on creation, 66 books on redemption. Love compassionately came down from heaven to die for mankind, which was created out of love. Minimalism?

Let’s say, put 2 of your friends together side-by-side. You start comparing them & you will find so much difference in them physically. Put your whole class together & well, everyone then looks the same. It’s just a human figure in many other forms of variations. Minimalism? Or maybe perhaps variations of a kind.

I used to attend classes by a lecturer who I believe is a strong minimalist. Even named his company Minimus. Check out some good stuff he did. Simply nice.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “The fewer limitations the artist imposes on his work, the less chance he has for artistic success.” Pretty much as interesting as when the lecturer says “No.”. But then, you couldn’t be bothered by what he says, even though minimalism might take place, it imposes a challenge to prove yourself better.

The art of less is more has a very interesting canvas to paint on. But still the issue of wether too much of something is good is always argurable. Read more & you will get more knowledge. Hang out more with Ah Lian & you will become Ah Lian. Then, Ah Beng like. Work hard & make money. Work hard & loose family. I always get this from my clients, “Too simple lah.. Can you make it more feeling?” Read your bible & pray more. I’ve always envy those guys out there who can easily turn a complex message into simple message understood by everyone though. Less is absolutely complicated.

On the lighter note, I couldn’t be bothered about World Cup. I didn’t watch a single match. Football minimalist.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Design & Typography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.