October 2007

While I expected a lot from this book, it didn’t quite live up to my expec­ta­tions. Don’t get me wrong, the book is good, but it is more of a per­sonal jour­nal than a book about sim­plic­ity. In spite of the imper­fec­tions, I still think the book is a good read.

I am a big fan of John Maeda and what he does at the Media Lab. I have been read­ing his blog about sim­plic­ity and fol­low­ing his Web site for some time and from what I have seen, I have to admit that the author is a great tech­nol­o­gist and designer. One par­tic­u­lar project I think is bril­liant is a graph­ics about the cri­sis in Darfur. The sim­plic­ity of this graph­ics helps com­mu­ni­cate a pow­er­ful message.

With this in mind, I expected his book on sim­plic­ity to be excep­tional. Although the book is quite good, it is not as sub­stan­tial as I thought it would be. The book is short, exactly 100 pages long, bro­ken down into 14 chap­ters out­lin­ing 10 prin­ci­ples, 3 keys and a last chap­ter about life and tech­nol­ogy. Each prin­ci­ple is dec­o­rated with a logo designed by the author to fore­shadow the con­tent that fol­lows. I didn’t find the logos to be par­tic­u­larly use­ful or inspiring.

The prin­ci­ples of sim­plic­ity men­tioned in this book are shal­low with few exam­ples that sup­port them. Most of the exam­ples are arbi­trary and not imme­di­ately made clear as to how they relate to what the author is talk­ing about . I find the prin­ci­ples hard to apply in a real life situation.

The book is not all bad. I find it inspir­ing despite its short­com­ings. Some of the exam­ples are inter­est­ing and com­ing from the author’s own life experience.

If you are look­ing for an enjoy­able read­ing on sim­plic­ity and design in a quiet after­noon, I would def­i­nitely rec­om­mend the book.