TheDieline.com: Package Design: In Defense of Complexity
• SIMPLICITY is the worldview seen through a child’s eyes, or those of an uninformed adult; someone who is engaged mostly in his own experience and naively unaware of what lies beneath the surface of the here-and-now.
• COMPLEXITY is the ordinary, common, typical adult worldview. There’s an awareness of the complexity of life, though without a good ability to find clarifying patterns and connections… this is the state that leads to complication!
• INFORMED SIMPLICITY is an enlightened perspective on reality –– using the skills of finding the patterns within complexity, the designer then brings “order out of chaos” and creates something powerful, enduring and robust.
This more nuanced, complex approach –– written for designers of buildings –– is equally instructive for designers of brands. For FMCG marketers, and the package designers who counsel them, “Informed Simplicity” is something to consider. Or, as Albert Einstein famously noted: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Insightful and very applicable to marketing. The whole article is worth a read.
