This text is my professional manifesto as a practicing designer working at the intersection of product architecture, materiality, and tactile design. In it, I frame essentialism not as a style or an aesthetic pose, but as a rigorous method for working with meaning in an age of informational and visual noise.
I treat design as a form of cognitive ecology: every object either reduces the load on a person’s mind or increases it. Minimalism, which for a long time was perceived as the answer to an overloaded environment, in reality too often collapses into “cleaning up the picture” without an engineering reconsideration of what exactly carries the load and why.
By essentialism I mean a discipline in which a designer consistently:
- identifies the load-bearing elements of form, function, and meaning;
- removes everything that does not serve those elements;
- amplifies what matters tactilely, visually, and semantically;
- verifies whether the object has in fact reduced noise around the person.
In this text I draw on the work of Dieter Rams, Donald Norman, and Klaus Krippendorff, as well as the Japanese notion of Ma as “active emptiness”. At the center, however, is my own practice: the concrete filters, questions, and criteria I use to make design decisions every day.
Introduction. Why I Choose Essentialism
Personal context: what kind of “noise” I work with
I work with objects that stay as close to a person as possible: in the hand, on the desk, in the immediate field of vision. These can be executive leather goods, bespoke corporate artifacts, or everyday functional objects. They live in an environment where there are already too many signals: screens, notifications, logos, advertising surfaces, complex interfaces. Each of these elements demands attention, interpretation, a decision—even if that decision is microscopic.
Psychologists call this cognitive load. I see it as semiotic noise in which things cease to be mute. An object is no longer simply there—it talks to a person through gestures of form, shine, weight, texture, branding. The only question is what it says and how loudly.
My clients do not come to me for yet another “beautiful thing”. They intuitively look for silence: an object that does not demand constant attention, does not compete with the person, does not provoke fatigue—yet remains saturated with meaning and presence. Working in this context, I gradually understood that the familiar design answers to the problem of noise are not enough for me.
Why minimalism turned out to be insufficient for me
For a long time minimalism was sold as a universal cure for overload: remove details, simplify the palette, level the planes—and the world will become cleaner. At the level of the image this really works. But in real practice I have too often encountered objects that looked minimalist yet continued to generate noise:
- the form had been cleaned up, but the use scenario remained confusing;
- the interface was “clean”, but still forced a person to keep guessing;
- the thing looked “expensive and restrained”, but through its weight, angles, or texture created physical tension.
Minimalism answers the question “what can be removed?” but does not answer the question “what truly carries?” Minimalism easily turns into decorative emptiness. It reduces visual complexity but does not always reduce the number of redundant signals and friction points in a person’s experience. I needed a method that works not with the picture, but with the structure of meaning and load.
What I call essentialism in design
To describe my own practice I needed a word that is stricter and more precise than “minimalism”. By essentialism I mean a discipline in which:
- an object is seen as a system of signals rather than just a shape;
- every element of form, material, and interface must either carry a function, amplify meaning, or provide tactile and psychological comfort;
- anything that does none of these is treated as noise and should be removed, even if it is “beautiful” or “familiar”.
If minimalism can be reduced to the formula “fewer details”, then essentialism for me sounds like “nothing superfluous that does not carry”. Essentialism is not about a poverty of expression. It is about a richness of selection.
The World of Noise and “Loud Objects”
Semiotic noise and cognitive load
I work in a world where objects, interfaces, and brands behave like media. Each of them broadcasts something: status, emotion, promise, demand. The phone screen asks for attention. Packaging explains why this product is “special”. Even clothing and accessories have become channels of communication with oneself, with the environment, with algorithms. In the language of semiotics this is a constant stream of signs. In the language of psychology it is a rise in cognitive load.
Traditional design often behaves here like a participant in an arms race. Brands compete for a share of attention: louder, more contrast, more complex. I look at it differently. For me, design is not a tool for amplifying noise but a tool for tuning the environment. If a thing adds yet another stream of signals without freeing a person from others, I regard it as poorly designed.
Essentialism as cognitive ecology
I treat essentialism as a form of cognitive hygiene: removing from a person’s life those signals that do not add clarity, reducing the number of micro-decisions that lead nowhere important, and designing things so that they support attention instead of scattering it.
For me this is not only a matter of taste but a matter of professional ethics. If I consciously create an object that demands more attention than it gives back in function, meaning, or calm, I regard that as a professional mistake. Respect for a person’s attention and resources I treat as a standard of quality.
Theoretical Foundations of My Approach
How I Understand Dieter Rams’ “Less but Better”
Dieter Rams’ phrase “Weniger, aber besser” is often read simplistically: “do less.” But if you really listen to it, the key word is “better”, not “less”. I understand this principle in the following way:
- “Less” is not a goal, it is a consequence of honest work.
- When you consistently remove everything that does not improve a person’s experience, at some point the number of things naturally becomes smaller.
- But what drives you is not a craving for emptiness. It is the desire for a maximum concentration of quality and meaning.
If an element can be removed without destroying function, meaning, or tactile comfort, then it is not load-bearing.
The Object as Language: Klaus Krippendorff
To work not only with form but with meaning, I had to accept something simple: people interact not with objects as such, but with what those objects are saying to them. Klaus Krippendorff formulates this through the semantics of design: any artefact is a language, a set of messages.
Noise appears where the message contradicts itself:
- a thing looks like metal but feels like a plastic imitation;
- a product promises simplicity yet forces a person to think and remember steps;
- a form screams status but does not support basic comfort.
Essentialism, for me, is the work of removing this dissonance. I check: Is the object lying with its appearance, weight, tactility, or behaviour? If it is, that lie is semantic noise and must be addressed—even if visually everything looks “minimalist”.
Donald Norman’s Three Levels of Design
Donald Norman distinguishes three levels of design: the visceral (first impression), the behavioural (how it behaves in use), and the reflective (meanings, identity, attitude over time).
My essentialism is primarily reflective. I design things so that they do not burn out semantically; so that they can age together with a person; so that they do not constrain them, but accompany them. The final test for essentiality happens on the reflective level: Will this object still be a source of calm and a recognisable anchor when the initial “wow-effect” has long gone?
Emptiness as Material: Ma and the Architecture of Silence
Ma: active emptiness inside the object
In Western tradition emptiness is often perceived as “nothing”: a lack, a gap, a space waiting to be filled. In my practice it is the opposite. Emptiness is part of the structure.
I lean on the Japanese concept of Ma—the interval, the gap, the pause that makes the experience itself possible. We hear music not only because of the sounds, but because of the pauses between them. Space works the same way: we feel a wall through the distance to it, an object through the air around it.
This emptiness is neither an error nor a lack. It is a deliberate field for life. If you strip an object of all its Ma, it becomes a dense, heavy, noisy thing that constantly demands attention. My task is to find the point where emptiness becomes structurally load-bearing: it does not merely surround the object, it works together with it.
Architecture of silence: Zumthor and Pawson
At the level of space I am close to architects who know how to make silence tangible: Peter Zumthor, John Pawson, and others who consciously work with tone rather than noise. In their architecture silence is not the absence of events but composure: nothing superfluous, yet every detail, texture, and proportion supports the overall mood.
From architecture I bring principles down into the small scale: calm load-bearing elements, material as a source of quiet, and light/shadow as co-authors. I treat an object as a small fragment of architecture: it too has load-bearing parts, enclosures, voids, and shadows.
Signal and Noise in Objects
Tactile epistemology: why I trust the hands
The eyes are easy to fool. The hands almost never. On the visual level an object can present itself as “perfect minimalism”: crisp edges, matte surface, beautiful geometry. But as soon as you take it in your hands, it becomes obvious if it chills the skin, presses where it should support, or slips when it is supposed to be an anchor.
I treat the hands as an instrument for testing the honesty of form. For me, tactile comfort is one of the key criteria of essentiality. If a thing is visually convincing but the body does not want to stay with it for long, I assume that there is still noise in the construction.
Essentialism across different media
Executive Leather Goods
Leather has its own set of signals: thickness, the sound of closures, resistance of flaps, the visibility of seams. Here, essentialism means reducing hardware to what is genuinely necessary, simplifying the gesture path, and using the quality of the material and edge burnishing instead of decorative complexity.
Corporate Presentation & Packaging
Packaging is traditionally overloaded with signals: loud printing, complex unboxing sequences, excessive branding. In an essentialist approach, I keep one leading signal (for example, the architectural weight of a rigid box) and dampen everything extra. We replace loud inks with subtle blind-debossing, ensuring the presentation creates a zone of calm authority rather than a desperate bid for attention.
Spatial and Product Objects
In objects and elements of space, essentialism makes me ask: Does this object really have to be “loud” in order to perform its function? If not, I lower its “volume” by hiding technical noise and searching for a balance of mass and void that allows the object to hold the space without taking it over.
My Method: How I Apply Essentialism in Practice
The Four Steps of My Design Process
Step 1. Diagnosing the noise. I ask myself: In what environment will this object live? What exactly is in excess: shine, information, brands, corners, functions? I describe the noise before I ever start sketching.
Step 2. Identifying what is load-bearing. What single key task does it solve for a person? What signal should it leave behind a year from now when the novelty effect has gone?
Step 3. Subtracting the non-essential. I examine every line and detail and ask: “If I remove this, will the load-bearing idea or experience collapse?” Subtraction is not an aesthetic clean-up, it is a structural operation.
Step 4. Amplifying the primary signal. I only amplify what has been recognised as load-bearing. The idea is not to add “beauty”, but to increase the density of quality exactly where it truly matters.
An Essentialist Checklist for the Things I Create
Before I consider an object finished, I run it through a simple but strict checklist:
- 1. Has the object reduced noise? Are there fewer unnecessary signals in the context it lives in?
- 2. Are its load-bearing elements clear? Can I explain what it exists for in one or two sentences?
- 3. Are the signals aligned? Do the visual, tactile, and semantic impressions match?
- 4. Is the body comfortable? Is it possible to forget about it in the moments when it is doing its job?
- 5. Will the object stand the test of time? Is it plausible that a few years from now the person will still consider it “theirs”?
Mistakes I Consciously Refuse
There are three types of decisions I consider fundamentally incompatible with essentialism:
1. Decorative minimalism. The form is cleaned up, the palette is neutral, but there has been no structural re-thinking of meaning and function.
2. Complexity for the sake of impression. The desire to impress at any cost, or an attempt to hide a structurally weak solution behind effects.
3. A form that demands more attention than it gives back. If a thing constantly reminds you of itself, catches, glares, or demands emotional “servicing” without returning calm in exchange.
Conclusion. Design That Knows How to Be Silent
For me, this text is neither theory nor a brand statement. It is a formalisation of how I actually work and how I want to keep working. I do not romanticise silence. The world will not become calmer just because we start making “minimalist things”. Noise is a built-in property of modern life. Precisely for that reason, I believe a designer has no moral right to add more noise without necessity.
If “minimalism” stops at a clean image and never reaches the construction of meaning or the use scenario, it is just a style, not a discipline.
I do not expect essentialism to become a mass trend. But I am convinced it has a future as a professional discipline for those who are ready to think about the human being deeper than about the image. The kind of design I want to see and create is design that knows how to be silent. Not because it has nothing to say, but because at the right moment it can step back into the shadows and leave at the centre not itself, but the person it was made for.
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