When it comes to web design, not to mention online marketing as a whole, the world would be a better place if this book, As Little Design as Possible, were required reading for every professional.

Written by Sophie Lovell, the book examines the design sense of a man named Dieter Rams, who ran the design team at Braun for nearly 50 years. And although he created real-world (what I like to call analog-world) products, the concepts Dieter follows work in any medium — even in 2020.

In a nutshell his philosophy is: “less but better.”

When it comes to websites, less distraction, less movement, less confusion, less noise = less, but better design.

Maybe I should rephrase that as mindful design, as there’s still design involved …

Sure, movement on a webpage may look cool to the developers on a web design team — but that doesn’t mean it’s best for the website visitor (in fact, it can be quite nauseating). When we look at the visitor — the potential client or customer — design moves away from what “looks cool,” or what’s on-trend, and becomes more difficult.

Why more difficult? Because it moves into the realm of what’s the best way to design this for the USER so they have an outstanding user experience on a website, in turn making it more likely they will ENGAGE …

In other words, websites need to be designed so they are functional, easy to use — and look good, too.

In this case form follows function, as opposed to form following design sense that’s not grounded in the user’s experience.

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Where do you find your design inspiration?

Dieter Rams (the long-time Chief Design Officer at Braun) found it while working with his grandpa who was a wood worker. Jony Ive (Chief Design Officer at Apple), interestingly enough found some from Dieter Rams.

Although you can see this influence in many Apple products, this one is quite obvious.

The first product you see here is the Braun Electrostatic Loud Speaker LE1 …

And this, of course, is the iMac …

There’s no denying the connection between these two products.

I’m sometimes asked (typically in our web design prep meetings) where I find design inspiration. I often find my inspiration from books like these …

The first, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible, is a history of Braun, their products, and Mr. Rams creations over the course of 40 years. In addition to design inspiration, the book also causes me to think about design methodology and the future of web design (which will look different than it does today, right?).

The second book, Design: The Definitive Visual History, is chock-full of mid-century industrial products that (at least to me) lend themselves very nicely to web design.

Many of the designs we’re working on, including the new website for my forthcoming book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, are based on inspiration from these mid-century products. But they’re top secret until they go live!

That said, here’s one example from a website we built for EarthView Yoga, an awesome yoga studio on the east side of Madison, WI. This homepage design is based on the Penguin Books cover on the left …

Design inspiration can come from anywhere. As long as you’re mindful about keeping your eyes open for it, you’ll start to identify all kinds of items that can ignite an idea.

Where do you find YOUR design inspiration?

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Of course, he was referring to design (we’ll save that discussion for another blog post), but what about our businesses — and our lives? How much of it is just noise (nonessential), and how the heck to we quiet things down a bit?

According to Greg McKeown, Essentialism is about “how to get the right things done … it’s about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”

Based on this definition, I’ve been asking myself the following two questions:

1. What are some of the nonessential things in my business that I can easily identify? Once identified, if it’s important enough to keep can I pass it on to a team member to handle — or even better automate? For it to be deemed “not important enough” to keep in play, it’s got to have low or no ramifications.

2. What are some essential things I can pass on to someone else or automate? Although this is a similar question to the first, there’s more at stake here. The essentials have to get done — but they all don’t need to be done by me.

And don’t forget, essentials in your home life (like cleaning, cooking, etc.) that are time sucks take you away from your business AND your family. Hiring someone to clean so you can work or have more energy/time for family is an excellent investment.

Is there one nonessential thing you can easily get rid of, delegate, or automate?

Is there one essential thing you can delegate or automate? Even if it involves some upfront work to free up your time down the road — so you can tackle things that can only be accomplished you?

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