Minimalism started soon after the second World War, when the rest of society was still in shambles, desperately scrambling to recover after a devastating historic event that basically destroyed the foundations of the world and shook it to its very core. It was originally an art movement, where visual art pieces moved toward geometric abstraction, away from the then movements of modernism and postmodernism and into the more orderly, simpler straight lines of minimalism. After all, with minimalism, no attempt is made to represent an outside reality, and the artist wants the viewer to respond only to what is being shown right under their noses. In other words, to see things as they really are. Minimalist painter Frank Stella famously said about his paintings “What you see is what you see”.
As the rest of the world started to get back up on its two feet, however, minimalism slowly started to infiltrate into the design language of everything else, ranging from architecture, to music, to even literature. Today, we see the far-reaching influence of this little art movement that began in the late 1950s, now influencing everything around us in the modern world, from the design aesthetic of our various technologies, such as smartwatches and smartphones, to even the application icons and the logos of large conglomerates and companies. Indeed, minimalism has grown beyond its original art movement and has entered our everyday lives as a way of living, a conscious design choice that favours less as being more.
Less is More
Less is more. That is the design philosophy at the core of minimalism. Considering the name of the movement, surely this does not come as a surprise. Minimalism is all about cutting out the excess, ignoring all the surrounding noise and clutter that only serves to distract one from the core essence of the product design. Minimalism is said to have been influenced largely by Japanese traditional design and architecture, where their concepts of Zen philosophy and the Japanese’s core idea of simplicity bled into Western society’s concepts and design language. As the design philosophy got more and more refined, we see the movement evolving into more than just the reduction of clutter. We see how artists and architects use the empty space that comes with stripping down the design to its bare minimum, and making it blend together with natural light, nature and its surroundings; we see it taking on a new kind of emptiness, one that does not feel like a work or space devoid of personality and lacking in content, but one that utilises basic geometric forms, elements without decoration and the repetition of structures to convey a sense of order and essential quality within them. In other words, minimalist design and spaces seeks essence and simplicity, forcing the spectators to rediscover the valuable qualities in simple and common materials.
Modern day minimalism
Today, many modern technologies and their user interfaces heavily draw their influence from minimalism. From fitness bands to tech companies, from operating systems to in-game menu screens, many of their design philosophies are directly drawn from the minimalist mantra: that clutter is unnecessary, and their choice to not throw too much in their users’ faces has proven to be quite effective indeed. Even more recently is the Konmari philosophy that was popularised by Marie Kondo’s Netflix series, where Kondo espouses the benefits of reducing clutter in their living and workspaces in order to live a better, tidier life. Minimalism is infiltrating into even our actual, living existences, becoming a part of our globalised culture. It is now a cultural phenomenon in its own right.
In fact, many companies, tech or otherwise, have even started to recently change their logos to a more minimal form of design, with the likes of Google and Microsoft, to name a few, all choosing to abandon their old, outdated and what one can indeed say was messy to the eye, logos and redesigning them to look fresher, less noisy, more sleek and streamlined and more pleasing to the eye in general.
It is not very hard to see what is so appealing about such a design choice. Not only is it easier to create a minimalist design over, say a maximalist or a more intricate one, it is also bold and eye-catching to have just a single letter G with red and green accents or a silver apple logo stencilled onto the back of your phone. It is obvious and hard to miss, allowing others to immediately identify the company that such a product is from. It also lends a strange air of sophistication to the product: that they do not have to show off any flashy designs or gaudy, bright icons and products. All they need is their logo on it, and one instantly is able to identify the brand.
That is the appeal of minimalism: clean, sleek, sophisticated, easily recognisable and easy to design too. It is no wonder then that minimalism has exploded into popularity in the 21st century as the design philosophy of choice for the modern world.
