KISS:: Keep It Simple Stupid

The KISS acronym is a common term used within a variety of industries, namely marketing.  While I think it is a great concept and rule of thumb, I am not very fond of the “stupid” part.  I feel that whoever came up with this acronym thought it would be cool if it spelled out the word kiss and added an extra letter.  Nevertheless, it is a great rule of thumb when coming up with marketing concepts and design pieces.

I often tell my clients that less is more, which is keeping in line with KISS, but what does that really mean?  From a design perspective, less has more impact.  If you received a marketing piece that was full of text with maybe a few images sprinkled in here and there, how likely are you to read ALL of it?  If you instead received a marketing piece that looked sparse in comparison with the amount of text how likely would you be to read ALL of the text on that piece?

Any marketing piece that you create has a purpose.  You want to provide information to your potential client, whether that is information about a product or service that you offer or to inform them of a promotional offer.  By using less and keeping it simple, you have more control over what that potential client takes away from your piece.  If you have too much text and just too much going on in your piece, then the potential client will only take a portion of that information with them if any at all.  You also are unable to dictate which information they took with them or at what point they became tired of reading and stopped.

In design-speak, we often talk about “white space” and most designers are quite fond of it.  The reason why we love white space so much is because it gives you the power to control the viewer’s eye.  By keeping it simple and using less graphics, colors, images, fonts, etc. we are able to draw attention to what is really important in a piece and direct traffic or the viewer’s eyes through it.  White space does not have to literally mean white.  White space is just a term to refer to copious amounts of clear space; space that is void of graphic elements or text that would command the viewer’s attention.

Ultimately, if you are creating or having a marketing piece created, you want it to work for you.  By keeping it simple, you put the power in your own hands to get that done.  Make it complicated and the potential client will make all of the decisions for you and probably not in the manner that you would like.