To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.
Milton GlaserRead
Less isn't more; just enough is more.
Interpretation
Emphasizes the importance of balance and sufficiency over minimalism.
This quote suggests that rather than aiming for less in life or in design, one should strive for a state of 'just enough.' It promotes the idea that true satisfaction and effectiveness lie in achieving equilibrium, where things are neither excessive nor insufficient, but perfectly adequate.
In practice
During a presentation on design philosophy, I will use this quote to highlight why balance in elements is key.
To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.
All the things you're not supposed to do at the beginning of your professional life - transgressiveness, arbitrariness and violating expectations - you find more attractive at the end of your professional life.
The idea of trying able to explain why you do what you do is absurd.
The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.
It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
People have a hard time accepting anything that overwhelms them.
No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
My faceless neighbor spoke up: “Don’t be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.” I exploded: “What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet? His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship,’ we call it ‘concern for commercial viability.
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