Customer Reviews

Less is More: The New Simplicity in Graphic Design

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I think that the book showcases work that would normaly place third in a design show. The idea of New Simplicity is simply a nice way of saying little color, little visual metaphore, little interest. If you are buying this book because you think that this is a swiss simplistic book DON'T! If you are buying this book because you think it's of the likes of Jan Tischold, or of the Bauhause regime, DON'T. This is a book that can add another inch to your design library, and give you a few ideas for how to make a few colors, and minimal design have some minimal impact.

I sent the book back because it did not offer me any new information. However, someone just starting out, may find it to be a helpful primer to their Graphic Design foundation.

The maxim "less is more" has long been associated with Modernism, while a more appropriate slogan for Postmodernism (said Robert Venturi) is "less is a bore" or "more is more." This is hardly a new dichotomy because, as this book explains, the primary squabbles in art and design have been about complexity (more) versus simplicity (less). "The histories of art and design are replete with epochs, movements and styles that employ clutter as an ideological or aesthetic reaction to purity," the authors argue, and since the 1980s (Postmodern, Retro, New Wave), "visual clutter has reigned supreme." Using scores of examples of graphic design, the authors predict that the pendulum has caromed off "more is more" and is now swinging back toward a simpler, less layered approach to design. If so, this is one of the earliest books to announce the new paradigm. (Copyright © by Roy R. Behrens, from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol 15 No 2, Winter 1999-2000.)