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Having enjoyed Greg McKeown's Essentialism and Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks in the past half a year, I was quite excited to read John Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity. It was an appealing hook - 10 laws of simplicity for business, technology and design!
But honestly, I found the book a painful read. It felt like a random collection of thoughts, stream of consciousness musings pulled together with numbering (10 laws!), mnemonic devices and acronyms thrown in to try to give the semblance of structure and coherence. So we have random anecdotes like how Maeda's daughters send him email with text of all sizes, colours, smileys and how Maeda now responds in kind (this is emotion in action). How inspired Maeda was by Paul Rand and treasures the memory of meeting him in his studio, watching his toddler learn how to walk (to illustrate his law on learning), how he has kept an unusual business card on his desk for 7 years because of how different it is. And Maeda's account of how, during an exhibition of his digital art in Paris where he encountered works by Australian artist Ron Mueck, which stirred in him a deeply emotional response. A couple of these anecdotes in a book make it more personal and intimate. A barrage of these just makes the book incoherent.
But thankfully Maeda's book is supposed to make sense thanks to pithy mnemonic devices like SHE: Shrink, Hide, Embody; SLIP: Sort, Label, Integrate, Prioritize; BRAIN: Basics are the beginning, Repeat yourself often, Avoid creating desperation, Inspire with examples, Never forget to repeat yourself.
Maeda peppers his book with insightful observations as:
"Fragility is an essential counteracting force to complexity because it can instill pity - which by coincidence also occurs in the word simPlIciTY!"
Or this revelation in relation to Maeda's Law 3 that savings in time feel like simplicity: "an alternative means to 'saving' time is to hide its paassage by simply removing time displays from the environment. I stopped wearing a wristwatch many years ago as I found…that as a result I never feel I am running out of time."
He rounds off his book with the ultimate Zen Law called The One: "Ten Laws (10: one, zero), remove none (0: zero), and you're left with one (10: one). When in doubt, turn to the tenth Law, the One".
To be fair, The Laws of Simplicity is a very short book, which limited my suffering. Best part of the book? Learning this interesting factoid that "in the martial art of Karate, for instance, the symbol of pride for a black belt is to wear it long enough such that the dye fades to white as to symbolise returning to the beginner state" (caveat: I need to verify this with reliable sources).
To save other readers the trouble, here are the 10 laws:
1. REDUCE. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
2. ORGANISE: Organisation makes a system of many appear fewer.
3. TIME: Savings in time feel like simplicity.
4. LEARN: Knowledge makes everything simpler
5. DIFFERENCES: Simplicity and complexity need each other
6. CONTEXT: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral
7. EMOTION: More emotions are better than less.
8. TRUST: In simplicity we trust
9. FAILURE: Some things can never be made simple.
10. THE ONE: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.
But honestly, I found the book a painful read. It felt like a random collection of thoughts, stream of consciousness musings pulled together with numbering (10 laws!), mnemonic devices and acronyms thrown in to try to give the semblance of structure and coherence. So we have random anecdotes like how Maeda's daughters send him email with text of all sizes, colours, smileys and how Maeda now responds in kind (this is emotion in action). How inspired Maeda was by Paul Rand and treasures the memory of meeting him in his studio, watching his toddler learn how to walk (to illustrate his law on learning), how he has kept an unusual business card on his desk for 7 years because of how different it is. And Maeda's account of how, during an exhibition of his digital art in Paris where he encountered works by Australian artist Ron Mueck, which stirred in him a deeply emotional response. A couple of these anecdotes in a book make it more personal and intimate. A barrage of these just makes the book incoherent.
But thankfully Maeda's book is supposed to make sense thanks to pithy mnemonic devices like SHE: Shrink, Hide, Embody; SLIP: Sort, Label, Integrate, Prioritize; BRAIN: Basics are the beginning, Repeat yourself often, Avoid creating desperation, Inspire with examples, Never forget to repeat yourself.
Maeda peppers his book with insightful observations as:
"Fragility is an essential counteracting force to complexity because it can instill pity - which by coincidence also occurs in the word simPlIciTY!"
Or this revelation in relation to Maeda's Law 3 that savings in time feel like simplicity: "an alternative means to 'saving' time is to hide its paassage by simply removing time displays from the environment. I stopped wearing a wristwatch many years ago as I found…that as a result I never feel I am running out of time."
He rounds off his book with the ultimate Zen Law called The One: "Ten Laws (10: one, zero), remove none (0: zero), and you're left with one (10: one). When in doubt, turn to the tenth Law, the One".
To be fair, The Laws of Simplicity is a very short book, which limited my suffering. Best part of the book? Learning this interesting factoid that "in the martial art of Karate, for instance, the symbol of pride for a black belt is to wear it long enough such that the dye fades to white as to symbolise returning to the beginner state" (caveat: I need to verify this with reliable sources).
To save other readers the trouble, here are the 10 laws:
1. REDUCE. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
2. ORGANISE: Organisation makes a system of many appear fewer.
3. TIME: Savings in time feel like simplicity.
4. LEARN: Knowledge makes everything simpler
5. DIFFERENCES: Simplicity and complexity need each other
6. CONTEXT: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral
7. EMOTION: More emotions are better than less.
8. TRUST: In simplicity we trust
9. FAILURE: Some things can never be made simple.
10. THE ONE: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.