I encountered Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv just around the time when I was crazily obsessed with creating visually simple designs. These guys seemed to have mastered the game decades ago. To me, their work was synonymous with minimalism, whatever that actually means - and to be honest, I wasn't quite sure.
It has been five years since I departed from this globally acclaimed design firm, but the question of true meaning of being minimal has never quite left me. Thinking of it always brings me back to my time working there, reminding me of the intricate process of creating a logo - a constant source of contemplation for me, one that transcends design and is usually tied to life's most agonizing and exhilarating moments.
I don’t remember when I first heard of the word minimalism.
I was introduced to the phrase "less is more" of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in an architecture history class in college, although my professor did not seem to be happy with me applying it to the word count of my thesis essay. I distinctly recall seeing a Tony Smith sculpture for the first time, and being confounded by the artist's intent with his black rectangular cuboids. And, of course, I was utterly smitten when I got my first iPhone, a 3GS, and was struck by the elegance in its simplicity. It was 2010, and mobile phones were still remarkably distinct in appearance. Remember?
Human beings are incorrigibly attracted to forms. We are blessed with two eyes and, if I may be so bold, we often tend to overuse them. Minimalism, for many, myself at one point included, is often misconstrued as the creation of simple-looking things - a trend that has been fostered by both globalization and the consumerism that surrounds us. Sans serif fonts, electronic devices with uniform round-cornered rectangular shapes, skyscrapers that emerge from a single extrusion command - you name it.
But here's the first and foremost thing that many get wrong about minimalism: the very concept has nothing to do with forms. In fact, practicing minimalism often entails avoiding excessive forms. Getting too preoccupied with it, too early, or theoretically at all, is a distraction. It's a mistake that most people make, and it runs counter to the very core of minimalism.
I was once among those fools, a slave succumbed to the allure of forms. I chased after a master's degree in design, a pursuit that offered me little in return. I brought home a plethora of trophies to prove that I know how to prettify things. I had boxes upon boxes of name cards printed, coated with gold foil and matte film, all to signal to the world that I was an expert in my field, when in fact, I didn’t have a damn clue.
At Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, I finally learned, interestingly through crafting logos, that whatever we do, we are solving problems. I can’t think of a better way to define graphic design than the way Sagi does it:
Solution to a problem through an idea that takes form.
Then enters minimalism, a unique approach of problem solving that stresses on stripping away anything that doesn't serve a clear purpose. It's a continuous process of subtraction that brings forth effectiveness, practicality, and strength, as well as economy, independence, and sustainability.
A minimalist solution is inevitably simple in form, but only as a consequence of the problem being understood to its core, and the solution being polished to an extremely clean state, left strictly with what is absolutely necessary.
The iconic Mobil logo we see today, created by Tom Geismar in the 1960s, was a classic example of problem-solving through minimalism. The old Pegasus symbol was minimized, and the fresh new concept of a red letter "O" was introduced instead. It echoed the circular shape of the gas pumps and canopies that Eliot Noyes had designed as part of the same campaign. The letter "O" also made sure that people knew how to pronounce the name. It was a powerful and unforgettable visual element that became the face of Mobil. And so it remains, a provocative symbol of one of the world's most well-known brands.
Eugène Delacroix, the French artist, once said, "If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man jumping out of a window in the time it takes him to fall from the fourth story to the ground, you will never be able to produce great works." Similarly, if you can't catch a driver's attention with a logo on top of a highway gas station as it flashes by the car window, you simply haven't designed a great logo. @2018-05-19 New York City 🇺🇸
However, a minimal solution is, without exception, expensive.
Unanimously, people gave me the jaw-dropping look after hearing how much the clients were paying for a logo that was this simple - a number that was indeed astronomical to associate with just dozens of pixels. Even those working in hedge funds raised eyebrows.
It's counterintuitive, isn't it? That the simplest things take the most time to make. But you see, people's attention is usually only drawn to the end result. The simplicity of that outcome is almost always in inverse proportion to the amount of effort needed to get there. A great visual identity is supposed to appear like it was created in a few effortless minutes, but getting there often takes weeks, even months of painstaking work. That's what the clients are spending money on, not just the end result, but also the grueling process of minimizing.
Built upon the hustler mindset of constantly chasing for something better and the scientist mindset that sets out to persevere, the minimalist mindset is all about staying focused, the most challenging aspect of all.
Unfortunately, that’s an area where human beings possess a natural tendency to fail.
We are fixated on form, rather than content, and this draws us away from what brings us fulfillment in the long term, and instead towards what makes us feel pleasant for only a short moment. We are prone to the comfort of the familiar, and resistant to change, particularly when it comes to leave behind the past – a necessary step for making progress. Even more pernicious still, we have been conditioned to crave more, and lurking beneath the facade of simplicity sometimes lies the insidious nature of consumerism. We are brainwashed to feed our insatiable appetite with more products and experiences, while losing our own perspective on what's important.