Creative Strategy
April 15, 2021
Remove

When you're moving something around, you may at once realize - it's not needed.

Open Reference


There's an idea in design - all the tiny things matter; they make an unspoken impression. It's true, yet many designers are still sad that no one notices all the little things.

Have you ever noticed the thin gray lines all over your phone?

When you're scrolling emails or texts, little divider lines are scattered all over.

I have spent hours pushing these lines around - making your phone into a bunch of glowing lists.

But adding thin gray lines often muddies a design. Amateur designers may think they are subtle - they are not. Usually, the solution is to replace the thin gray lines with nothing.

Like many things in life, when you're moving something around and around and around, you may at once realize it's not needed. And the solution is to remove it.

The challenge is that we get fixated on making what we have work, and we don't realize that we can remove the challenging bits. It can be hard to let go of something you've been refining. But letting go makes what's left more clear.

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