"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo Da Vinci
Simple being difficult seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?
Well, it does, but it’s true.
Back when I was in college, it was a relatively frequent occurrence to hear my professor say, referring to a design, something along the lines of, “it’s so obvious. I wish came up with it.”
And that’s often because simple is brilliant.
Like the FedEx logo. “FedEx” has a negative space arrow between the E and the X. It summarizes their business in such a simple way, it’s brilliant.
I was talking to Shawn the other day about a realization I had: often the simplest, most obvious solutions are the best — both in words, concepts and design.
“Well duh,” you might say, “that’s obvious.”
Yes, but why is it so hard?
I think it’s because we — almost naturally — like to overcomplicate things. Or if you’re like me, prior to my brain injury, I liked to “sound smart.” And I thought I did when I used a superfluity of verbosity. We think intelligence means…more. More words, more figures, more…stuff.
Steve Jobs once said, “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
Real Intelligence
But what I’ve come to realize is where the real intelligence lies: making things understandable. In other words, making things simple.
Having a traumatic brain injury not only taught that to me in concept — my brain doesn’t operate well with complexities any more — it taught that to me in practice. If I want to be understood well, I need to simplify how I communicate — in both words and designs.
And that takes work.
My daughter, just starting school, is learning to write. Adults don’t think it takes a lot of skill to trace or draw a straight line — we've done it a thousand times. But watch a kindergartner. It does. And it takes a special teacher to simplify each lesson enough so that the child understands and remembers it. I have tremendous respect for those teachers...
On the other hand, my husband, Shawn, is a brilliant example of this. He is a doctor of physical therapy (DPT) — which takes a lot of hard work…and intelligence. But he often gets comments from his patients, “no one has ever explained that to me before!” And he tells me, “Well, yes, they probably have, they just didn’t understand it” and so it didn’t stick. It wasn’t remembered.
Shawn just really simplifies these complicated concepts so that the guy on the street can understand, and remember, it.
You see, our brains often get in the way of our success. But we do have to know the information before we can simplify it.
In conclusion, that’s your action item for this month:
Simplify your words. Simplify what you do and how you explain it. It’s hard work, and people may not realize it right away, but that’s where real intelligence lies. That’s what makes people want to work with you.
If you want marketing materials that are simple, so that people can easily understand what you do and why it matters, contact me today. Simple makes you relatable and memorable.
Rooting for you!
