It seems like nowadays everyone -driven by social media- is in the craze need to discover something original, create a new way of doing something or changing the game somehow.
Short format video (call it TikTok, Stories, etc.) is full of examples of this desperate call for “original” ways to open a jar, separate an egg yolk, or just eat a slice of pizza.
Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is great. Innovation is good. But there is nothing more powerful than simplicity, especially in communication and user experience, as it leads to intuitive use and a shorter learning curve.
If you can reduce something complex to something simple, you will immediately have the attention of the majority of your audience. The simpler the message, the easier is to be delivered, understood and -maybe- accepted.
That is why I love the work -and the success- of @Khaby.Lame (72.9 M folowers)
His keen eye is putting on stage the untold conversation and it has payed him tenfold.
A simple format: just him, in his natural context wether it is home, street or table. No production. No need for translation or subtitles. His expression? A soon-to-be cultural icon on its own.
It is fantastic that almost a hundred years after the great Mies van der Rohe created his famous Cantilever Chair in 1927, the statement is the same.
At that moment, striping out all the unnecessary from furniture, houses and virtually everything a designer could create, was the rule. Not to be original (or cool. A word that was not in use back then) but to make a statement for all of us to reflect upon.
Simplicity is still the antidote for human’s desperate quest for originality.
And if this wasn’t strong enough… an additional spice for this dish are the sustainability implications of this originality and newness quest. That alone is enough for another post.
The reflection is on our side. Are we complicating or simplifying our world?