In Defense of Minimalism

November 9, 2024 - Published

Minimalism has gotten a lot of hate over the past few years, and as a designer, I do feel the need to comment on it. This is largely because I've personally been a fan of minimalism for a long time, something that I'm sure shows in some of my work. While it's not something I will blindly support, I do think there is a lot more to the discussion than "minimalism is bad" or "minimalism is good." Let's talk about it!

What is minimalism?

So, technically speaking, "minimalism" refers to a very specific art movement in the 1960s, but since that's not what most people refer to nowadays, that's not what I'll be talking about in this article. Going by Merriam-Webster, we can instead take the definition: "a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity."

The most popular (or infamous) case of the growing trend of minimalism happens to be company logos, so I'll primarily be using them as examples. Here's how the Google logo has evolved over the years, according to Wikipedia:

Before getting into opinionated territory, it's first worth talking about the most obvious pros of having something like a minimalistic logo. A logo is an identifier, something that should be immediately recognizable by anyone who sees it. It makes a lot of sense to keep it as simple as possible, because that means the identifiable parts will still be recognizable if it happens to have small changes or more details added. 

Google is a good example of this, because of the many Google Doodles that transform the logo. Even if they make changes to the shapes or colors, the logo is still recognizable because the base design is so iconic. You can tell that this Google Doodle is the Google logo, but if Google still used its original 3D logo, it would probably be a lot more difficult to connect the two.

Other reasons for keeping simplicity tend towards being more technical. Having vector-compatible designs allows it to easily be resized for different applications, and detailed designs tend to lose readability when they're smaller. While there is some debate to be had about it, most people also consider sans-serif fonts to be easier to read than serif fonts, especially on electronic screens. My cursory research puts this into question, but you can read this article for more details, which unlike the other pages has sources for each of its claims: https://geniusee.com/single-blog/font-readability-research-famous-designers-vs-scientists 

Why not minimalism?

So after listing all those practical reasons for having minimalistic designs, why do people dislike them?

Well, precisely BECAUSE they're practical.

After being bombarded with constant minimalist designs from every company, people find it very boring. It is practical, yes, but it gives off the impression that companies are only doing the bare minimum and have stripped themselves of all personality.

...and I can totally understand it! While I love minimalism, I despise many of these logo updates. I know I'm a bit late to the party for dunking on these, but let's talk about my most hated logo change of all, Patreon:

These are Patreon's logos, with the newest one on the right, and the oldest on the left. You can see that they're all based on the idea of the letter P, but with varying levels of abstraction. The newest logo is a literal blob in the vague shape of a P. Not only is this (subjectively) kind of ugly, it also breaks the fundamental point of why minimalism is helpful: recognizability. While I'm not a huge fan of the middle one, it does have that going for it. Patreon is a company that's big enough that a rectangle and circle next to each other at a specific position could grow to be recognizable enough as a logo, especially with a consistent color scheme.  However, having a blob is vague enough that it could be pretty difficult to differentiate from other companies. Or a piece of used gum.

Why I like minimalism

Now, there's something I need to point out about those Patreon logos. People complain about the new Patreon logos and about how bad minimalism is, and how much they wish they could go to the old logos. This infuriates me for a really simple reason.

That first logo IS a minimalistic design.

It uses a single color. It has no shading or details. It is the name and idea of the company distilled into a single shape. By any modern definition, this logo falls under minimalism. In my opinion, this extends to many other logos that have been complained about.

So, what makes them different? To me, the difference between minimalism and this controversial "ultra-minimalism" (as we can call it here) is the philosophy behind the fundamental goal.

I recently got this headset that only has a single button. It's used for pausing songs, skipping a song, turning the headset on, and turning the headset off, based on how many times you press it and how long you press it. Even though having 1 button is "more minimalistic," using it is more complicated than just having more buttons! The headset is also completely unable to rewind songs or mute the microphone, presumably because the number of inputs would be too complicated.

Why do I bring this up? It's because I like minimalism when it breaks design down to the necessary basics, but when minimalism is at the cost of those necessary basics, then what's the point? If you have an ultra-sleek phone but using it is a pain, then why make it sleek? If you have a simplistic chair that's uncomfortable to sit in, then why make it simple? If you have an easy-to-draw logo but it's not recognizable, then why make that your logo? To me, minimalism is not just about being "sleek" and "cool," it's also about being practical. 

When both of those things are pulled off well, I think it can lead to something really cool!

This is a marker I bought a while ago whose design I think is great! It's one color, nice and sleek, wonderful shade and material, but that also makes every detail stand out. There's a helpful label in the center to mark which side is a flat tip and which one isn't, using simple silhouettes. The caps have small ridges to increase grip. Even the shape being a rectangle, which may seem impractical at first, is surprisingly comfortable and automatically aligns the flat tip with the paper, while also preventing the marker from rolling off a desk.

A good mark of minimalism is if the design wouldn't be improved by adding or removing anything, and I think this marker does that pretty well. The caps are a bit decorative on the ends and don't stack on each other, but that's about the only thing I would change. Lots of people assume that minimalistic designs kill the design's character, but I argue that minimalistic designs done well exude character through minimalism. While it's not the fanciest thing, I would consider this rectangular marker to be rather striking, without sacrificing its usability.

Even if something isn't your taste, I do encourage people to look at these sort of things more critically! There are cases where minimalism goes overboard into something that may be considered "bad design," but many times, it may just be our gut reaction to dislike things that remind of us other things we just happen to not like, even if it isn't bad itself. 

This should also go without saying, but minimalism isn't the only aesthetic that I like, nor is it even my favorite. There are a lot of complicated designs that I love (see Gulusgammamon)! However, I do think that ignoring minimalism completely is a huge hindrance to aspiring artists or designers, because it has very important principles that everyone can learn from. 

• Vecderg