You can have less of a single thing (less aggravation, less pedantry), but fewer of quantifiable, plural items (fewer complaints, fewer pedants).

/grammargeek

UltraEdit

I came to this article after reading the new HTML Editor Reviews site. If you check out the various links to the editors you will see that the Mac apps subscribe to the less is more approach to design:

TextMate

skEdit

whilst the PC based editor site is far too busy!

<a “http://www.ultraedit.com/index.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=10“>UltraEdit</a>

The first two sites are simple and straightforward, although the design is ‘nice’, more than that it helps the content to shine through, which is what the web is all about.

BTW – I use a PC …

I agree wholeheartedly on the article though – we’ll just have to fight the good fight against the white space warriors – you all know those clients who get agoraphobic when you’re designing something for them.  There’s too much white space – can’t we just put something in here, or there, in fact lets just make sure that the whole page, every page is absolutely crammed full……

By the way, glad you enjoyed your trip to Aus, next time make sure you come to Brissie ; )

I do agree – the client can many times be their own worst enemy. We need to be willing to spend time educating why and how we have come to our decisions. Understandably, many people think what we do contains a considerable amount of hokus-pokus.

I also greatly agree with the clarity bit. Not surprisingly, simple is usually more clear. Imagine that. ;)

Dunno if this is a recent glitch, but I’m not seeing this post or any of your other recent ones on your site itself, just in RSS—when I look at the URL for this post I see it’s in a directory called /comments rather than the directory called /journal, which is probably the explanation.

Jason: I wrote a while ago about my top five design books, in the comments you’ll see a whole list of other people’s favourites, many of which are about design in the past.

Thanks!

Well I’d certainly agree with those sentiments – as indeed would any self-respecting designer. It’s a pity though that sometimes the client get’s in the way of our better judgments – and every designer has that one client who just won’t listen to common sense. To illustrate, I’ve recently done a batch of 20 business cards as part of an organisation’s rebrand – and one card in particular had to be reprinted because the person concerned wasn’t satisfied and insisted instead upon having seven logos included on their’s. Seven logos on a business card – no arguments, no compromise. So sometimes you’re just obliged to settle for an easy life and make the world just that little bit ugglier.

So top of my list of things to wish for is a LAW AGAINST LOGOS.

I’ve long thought that designers ought to adopt some of the business acumen of farmers and promote the concept of ‘set aside’. So, just as farmers get EU subsidies for not farming their land, why don’t we collectively promote the concept that designers ought to be paid for what we leave out, not what we put in? A sort of ‘penny for every font we don’t use’ policy.

It would certainly make the world a more beautiful place. And put is in the same earnings league as accountants and lawyers to boot!

David