Minimalism, The New Innovative
There’s lots of room for observations and analogies in the evolution of production trends. And, there’s more to analogies than serving a candy for the brain. They facilitate a deeper understanding of phenomena and briskly help to align with — or misalign from — the mainstream thinking (and here’s a quick read which explains why).
If we look back to the 18–19th century, mass production was a dream back then. The philosophy was “produce more and produce large”. Lavish architecture designs, garments, gardens — the artifacts created by people in those times were about going more massive, more grandeur, and about taking more space. Standards of innovation have been changing over the centuries, and what used to be innovative and massive, had become obsolete. Minimalism is the new innovative. Maybe, this is happening because of the fact that humans subconsciously feel they’ve taken too much terrain and sky on this planet for industrial experiments and now are trying to compensate by being minimalists in everything? Or simply finding ways to fit in?
Hardware/software as well as visual designs and interfaces have sheepishly been following the trend for minimalism as well. Some of us remember how bulky personal computers were. Now we’ve got all kinds of minimalistic devices the names of which start with “i” (or, with another letter :). Next, some of us remember waterfall. Or, CMMI standards with their rigid rules, regulations, documented processes. Over the recent times, it’s all been about “lean” and “agile” in the domain of work process management.
People have managed to stuff the overproduced artifacts not only all over the planet but all over themselves. Obesity is the huge problem. Again, what a shift in standards: fairly recently, in the beginning or even in the middle of the 20th century it was considered hippish to be fat. Well, not “obese” fat , but “beefy” fat. Now, we’re all about lean. Off with the fat, and voila: here comes lean as the philosophy of minimalism in production.
… and, I truly believe that many fat folks are hiding the “lean” insignia deep inside. It just takes some effort to peel off the layers 🙂
Related:
Further reading:
This story is based on an earlier article.
