The Art of Simplicity
You know that moment when you're rapidly inspired with a design idea, and you try various ways to make it detailed and complex, but you're drawn to the simplicity of it all?
I'm wondering: is simplicity just about what feels good and tranquil? Is it the path to designing a life that’s minimal, amplified, less complex and the best version of ourselves?
Knitting this shawl draws me to these questions.
As October embraces me like a warm shawl, I’m simultaneously craving this desire to master the art of simplicity. This season, I want to challenge myself to design at the highest level. I equally want to tap into my mind’s eye and make sure that I’m being clear, concise, and compelling both internally and externally.
Within that, I believe that there is complexity of simplicity of life.
Heck, there’s complexity of simplicity of shawls.
Shawls are designed in various shapes and sizes, and I’m knitting this shawl both for seasonal comfort and urban classic wearable style. I know that how I am constructing it will impact the final shape, and what impacts that further, is the fiber weight, how few stitches I start with, and where I knit in increases and decreases. I’m exploring how simple or complex I want the continuous edging. I’m playing around with how deep I want the center depth and how wide I want the wingspan.
Do I want to add colorwork? Should I incorporate a solid hue yarn? How would it look if I added in stockinette or brioche stitches? How long and how wide do I want to knit a straight section? Could I explore adding in mohair? Do I want to shift away from a side-to-side design to explore triangular, extended wing, circular, semi-circular, or biased pattern shapes?
Like I said, complex.
I'm appreciating Happy Place, an incredible yarn designed by Toni Lipsey and Hobbii as it's guiding me through ease and joy on making my knit decisions.
I got my VIP grab of Happy Place ahead of its official release last month. This beautiful DK yarn had an incredibly successful launch and many of the colors are already sold out, including this gorgeous mélange cinnamon, color 34. If you currently have or want to add HP to your stash, I recommend exploring the almond, pumpkin, ochre, or hunter green tones still in stock.
Toni has shared that her vision for her yarn line had its complexity in choosing the colors, the fibers, the patterns, and taking a confident faith leap to communicate her vision and product with the world.
But within that, her goal was simple too: to offer makers a chance to discover how crochet and knit makes us happy.
It's that kind of self-awareness and talent that has me grabbing this yarn from my shelf to swatch and design with over and over.
It's an art of simplicity.
Jay Sullivan notes in his book Simply Said that the complexity of simplicity is a fundamental concept with a paradoxical nature, particularly in how we communicate with our work and beyond.
He emphasizes that while a goal can always be to simplify complex ideas, achieving simplicity itself can be nuanced and challenging. He adds that this paradox reveals that simplicity isn't synonymous with oversimplification or ‘dumbing down’ content; but instead, is about achieving clarity, brevity, and information accessibility.
Sullivan acknowledges that embracing simplicity doesn't mean sacrificing depth or substance. Rather, it invites us to distill complex ideas into the most essential and understandable. As makers, we can apply his noted key ‘simple’ conceptual elements including:
Simplicity as Clarity – We should try to remove barriers that obscure understanding, and aim to be crystal-clear, precise, and ensure that people comprehend our message, design, pattern, yarn choices, etc.
Simplicity as Conciseness – When we lean in to removing unnecessary jargon or filler, we can then convey complex design ideas succinctly and effectively. How can we present our artistic details in a concise and digestible way? Learning this and respecting our audience’s time and cognitive capacity while delivering a potent design message is key.
Simplicity as Compelling Communication – This doesn’t mean that our art has to be bland or uninteresting, and it really should captivate and incite others to want to know more. How can we share and resonate our art, work, designs, and business on an emotional level? Figuring out how to make something memorable and inspiring is so challenging, but also cool. Think about a design you want to make and how you can share that through storytelling, with vivid behind-the-scenes examples, or persuasive engaged reels or blogs. Compelling communication drives engagement and gives our designs lasting impact.
I’m learning that the art of simplicity is about balancing depth.
It’s about arriving at a destination that feels accessible, but also nuanced.
It's about diversity, and from a place that showcases an internal-external mastering of the delicate art of simplifying without oversimplifying.
It’s a work in progress (hello October WIP), through every stitch, every row.
I challenge you to deep dive into your own art of simplicity this week.
Meantime, I’ll be here immersed in my shawl excited to share this pattern with you soon — aptly called the simplicity shawl.
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