Less is More
While marking essays this week, I found myself suggesting that the writer take out certain words to make their sentence structure. This is an example of less is more. In particular, I suggested removing unnecessary intensifiers and redundant words. The most common intensifier is ‘very’. It is a useful word, but it is overused. A lot of the time, it makes your writing worse because it seems lazy. There are many other synonyms that you can use instead of very. Or, you could just omit the word entirely.
Less is more means that (sometimes) having less is better than having too much. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. In my example, there were too many extra words. When you take away the unnecessary words, the writing is better. Another similar phrase is addition by subtraction. Again, it is the idea that something gets better by taking something away.
Today’s proverb dates to an 1885 poem by Robert Browning called Andrea del Sarto. However, it is most associated with the architect, Ludwig Miles Van Der Rohe. He adopted the phrase in 1947 to inform his work. He is known for his minimal designs and for his role in developing modernism (architecture). His building designs were rectangular and simplified. He was inspired by Japanese Zen Gardens. His style gives a feeling of clean and calm.
Less is more is used when you want to tell someone that they are doing too much. What they are doing is too elaborate, embellished or complex. It would be better if they focused on making things simpler.
See Also: Work smart not hard, Biting off more than you can chew, To say the least
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Reference:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/less-is-more.html
https://www.archdaily.com/350573/happy-127th-birthday-mies-van-der-rohe
https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-the-icon-of-modern-architecture-ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe-and-america