“Keep it simple.” “Live life with less.” Minimalism. We all seem to want a simpler life. Even our wiser generation says, “Things aren’t what they used to be, it was simpler in the old days.”
But what do we actually mean?
When we can click 1 button on a website and the next day have something delivered to our doorstep. Is that not simple? Or do we want life to be at slower pace, less controlled by technology and machines. Go off-grid and seek a simpler life, where we wash our laundry by hand in the creek? Is that simpler? It seems to me it’s quite a complex thing to make something simple. In order for something to be simple for one person, someone else has to do a lot of hard work.
If Amazon wants to deliver an automatic lettuce spinner to you in 1 day for the best price, they better have it ready. They have gone to great lengths to have the products you want, in stock. They already know that the product is the most desirable product (because of research and past sales analysis). They have specific models in stock (which means they’ve researched manufacturers for the best product for the best price point) They have pre-ordered large wholesale quantities and have dispursed them accurately to the warehouses close to their target markets (which would also have been pre-resarched). So what might seem simple for you – click a button and it’s here – Amazon wouldn’t agree it was simple to get it to you.
If you’ve ever tried to “Marie Kondo” your house, you know that to getting there is NOT easy. To have a magical tidy home, you have to get rid of everything in your house that you don’t need or that doesn’t ‘spark joy’. Everything you’re left with, then, can be put away neatly, hence the show’s title “Tidying Up”. In order to do this, it means you need to assess every. single. thing. in your house. Pick up each thing and ask, “Do I want this? Do I love this? Do I need this? Is this important?” (Repeat that about 50 thousand times.) And done! So to get a simple household for yourself, you first have to do the work to get it there.
When someone wants me to design something – but say, “Just make it simple”. What they actually mean is “Don‘t spend a lot of time on it so it won’t cost me too much.” But in order to design something that’s effective, there is work I have to do in order to communicate that.
To make a logo (or any piece of visual communication) effective, I first have to discover what’s important, and then remove everything else. The word “simplify” suggests there was more there, but we kept the best.
Let’s say you invited Marie Kondo into your house and said, “I really need you do get this house tidy quickly. I can only pay you for 1 hour.” All Marie would have time to do would be to simply pick up everything that is not put away, put it all in garbage bags and have it thrown out or donated. Simple! That’s what tidy is, isn’t it? Hardly an effective or sustainable method. If you think about it, the things that were out, were likely of most value to you because you were just using them.
Likewise, I could scribble something on a napkin, draw it on my software, pick a font and deliver you a ‘logo’ in no time. But there’s no telling how effective it will be. Is it unique? Does it represent the quality of product or service you provide? Does it set you apart from your competition? Will it attract your target market? Is it using the laws of balance and contrast to stand the test of time? Maybe not.
Perhaps the word people are looking for is “basic”. If you consider the most basic way to do laundry it might be to pick up a washboard and bar of soap, walk down to the nearest riverbed and start scrubbing. It would certainly be the cheaper than a washing machine. But do we really want to go there again? No thanks.
Simple doesn’t mean basic. And simple doesn’t mean easy. But simple can be valuable.
The time it takes you to go through the 50,000 items in your home would be considerable, but in the end would your life not be more simple? Imagine, a beautiful home with everything you love in it’s own designated spot. No more shuffling through all the clutter trying to find the thing you needed. There would be fewer things, it would take less time to clean, less time to tidy. It would certainly give you a simpler life.
Imagine a logo that belongs to just you. It reflects the quality of your business, and no one else’s. When your potential clients see your logo, they think of you, and remember your product.
There’s no confusion as to what you do. It gets the message across quickly. It’s simple.
It’s so simple. But it takes time to get there.