Simplicity on the other side of complexity - Tom McCallum

Simplicity doesn’t spontaneously spring to life with the right combination of molecules, water, and sunlight. It needs a champion—someone who’s willing to stand up for its principles and strong enough to resist the overtures of Simplicity’s evil twin, Complexity. It needs someone who’s willing to guide a process with both head and heart.

Just understand that Simplicity is more than a goal—it’s a skill. To successfully leverage its power, you need to get good at it. That takes practice. And this is where things get a little tricky. Because the irony is, becoming skilled in Simplicity isn’t that simple. You can’t just learn it; you need to make it second nature.

Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity.

Simplicity is difficult because most of us are overcompensating for uncertainty. It takes a deep understanding of beauty and emotional awareness to look at something, long before most people would say it is complete, and say “This is enough.”