Against Decoration

The discipline of visual reduction has never been more urgent.

I spent three weeks last winter stripping a dashboard to its essentials. The client had asked for “more personality.” What they meant, I eventually realized, was more noise — animated gradients, rounded cards with drop shadows, icon sets that communicated nothing. The final version used two type weights, one accent color, and a six-column grid. It outperformed everything they had shipped in two years.

The Discipline of Reduction

Müller-Brockmann wrote that the grid “implies a will to systematize, to clarify.” That will is not austerity for its own sake. It is respect for the reader’s time and attention. Every unnecessary element is a tax on comprehension. The Swiss understood this in 1958. We are still catching up in 2026.

“The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style.” — Müller-Brockmann, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, 1981