Book review: In Pursuit of Elegance

In this morning’s Swedish newspaper there is an article about an eleven year old boy who visited a factory where they design and make linen goods. After the visit the teacher asked the students to make a design for their own hand towel. The boy, not knowing what to do, drew an outline of own hand on the paper. The teacher submitted the kid’s designs to the factory and they choose to produce towels with the simple hand design. That simplicity is a good example of the art of elegance. It all brings about 40 cents per towel to the boy…

Matthew E. May’s book In Pursuit of Elegance is filled with well known and unknown examples of simple elegance. May makes the claim that it is often what is missing that makes something special instead of what actually is there. A well known example is a traffic designed in the Netherlands who, by taking away all traffic signs at an intersection, reduced accidents and increased flow. He also mixed up cars with bikes and pedestrians. A solution doomed to chaos? Not at all. Everyone became automatically more aware and careful. A tricky problem was solved in an elegant and most unusual and unexpected matter.

May’s book gets your thinking about the missing link in a good idea. The problem is to avoid thinking too much. That often leads to more not less. And more is not always elegant.