The Art of Simplicity
In Art.
14th century.
The Pope, commissioning a painter for a significant project, sends a courier to art’s grandest stage: Florence, Italy. The courier collects submissions in the style of the day: overwhelming grandeur; excessive opulence. Artist Giotto di Bondone submits a masterpiece: a bright red circle—a perfect circle—executed in a single stroke. Elegant, accurate; powerful. Giotto tells the courier the Pope will understand the implication of such precision. Giotto is right. He wins the commission.
In Cinema.
Five famous lines. Say each out loud, then state the movie.
“Show me the money.”
“I’ll be back.”
“Go ahead, make my day.”
“You talkin’ to me?”
“You can’t handle the truth.”
Not only do we recall the quotes themselves, we remember the source—and the rhythm and cadence of each.
Critical commonality: not one of these enduring quotes is over five words long.
In literature.
A timeless comparison: classics vs. moderns.
The modern novel averages 100,000-175,000 words in length.
Three classics and their word count:
Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind: 418,053.
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace: 587,287.
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables: 655,478.
The lesson is simple: in context of our modern world, less is far more.
Simplicity wins.
Modern art, in all its forms, competes for the very limited attention of a relentlessly preoccupied society. To a degree unseen in human history, we’re barraged from every direction with sensory overload. Undivided time and attention have never been so scarce a resource.
Context must be applied. In the days of classics, a novel got one through a long winter indoors, where time and attention competed with nothing. A long novel, and the elegant prose of the day, were a treasure to be discovered—the length of the book a virtue; not a detractor.
How times have changed. Current novels are not only shorter—the prose itself is tighter, crisper; easier to digest. Literature once filling countless free hours now competes for the limited attention of a distracted daily commute.
Google is the most popular internet search engine. This minimalist platform has universal appeal; we are invited in by its elegant simplicity. Open a browser to Google, and a second to Yahoo. Compare the two. Yahoo delivers a barrage of information; no page space left unfilled.
Simplicity wins. Google’s less is far more.
Application.
The effective leader does not use the biggest words in the longest phrases. Ideas are communicated in plain language with brevity.
The most important component of writing is editing. Not what is said—but what isn’t.
Be your own editor. Cut everything down to its core constituents. Stop over-communicating. Reduce the overblown presentation slides down to single sentences; singles words; better yet—single images. This will ignite audience engagement.
The longer the email, the more likely we are to delete it. Get to the point.
Anyone can ramble on about their subject for 45 minutes. Impress me. Sift your message down with such granularity it can be relayed in 8-12 minutes: a realistic time frame to educate—and entice—your audience.
Remove bloated “resume speak” from your vocabulary; while you’re impressed with your fancy words, your audience is wondering what the hell you’re talking about.
Less is more.
Brevity is power.
Simplicity wins.
Get to the point.
They will love you for it.
Mark Joseph Huckabee
