I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to be sophisticated. But the other day, a good friend of mine met me up for dinner and she threw me this question “Alvin, have you ever thought of changing your style? Perhaps to be more sophisticated?” And that question gave me a shock because I’ve never expected anyone to ask me that kind of question.

But it only took me a few seconds before answering her “I’m just a simple guy and I like the way it is now”.

Maybe she was thinking “no wonder you can’t find a gf” but ahem, that’s another topic altogether.

Her question actually made me think why do people want to be sophisticated in the first place? Is it so that they can enjoy more sophisticated things in life, or is it so that people would view them as somewhat mysterious? I have no idea.

But one thing I do notice is that nowadays, more and more people are adopting ‘the’ sophisticated lifestyle. They dine in luxurious restaurants, stay in luxurious hotels, drive nice cars, etc. Simple things are just not attractive or fun enough for them anymore. To be honest, I do have friends who are like that. Maybe they will say this is the right way to enjoy life.

However, I have different opinions on this. I don’t mind enjoying those things or to join the sophisticated lifestyle group once in a while but nowadays, I prefer to go for the simpler stuff. My aim is to be a minimalist. I try to clear off things on my desk as much as I can, wear as simple as possible (minimalist doesn’t mean wear as little as possible) and declutter anything which appears to be overcluttered for me.

I’m still far from that but that’s the direction I want to go.

For me, even a minimalist can enjoy life and be happy with it. Because in the end, the things that will really bring happiness to people are those little things in life that people don’t normally notice. And well, you can’t notice these simple things when you are blinded by all those sophisticated things.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some of the successful products in recent years.

• Apple IPod and IPhone. Simple design. Ease of use. In fact, most of Apple products have been designed with simplicity in mind.
• IKEA’s furniture. If you notice the design in the IKEA store, most of them are pretty simple and clean. Some are a bit cluttered due to the space but overall, they are still relatively simple yet attractive.
• Operation manual used to be text book sized but has now reduced to maybe one a4 paper for most products. People are just too lazy to read long-winded manual. They just want to get straight to the point and save time.
• And if you use Internet everyday, do you prefer a web site design which is messy or a design which is clean and simple?

It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? When there are too many things available to us, we tend to focus more on simple things which we can understand and digest right away. A complicated or messy design has the tendency to make us more sophisticated (not in a good way) and even, at times, frustrated.

So if you are trying to come out with a design or a product, remember that it’s important to solve the problem with as simple a method as possible. Because unlike in the past when anyone who creates complicated product is regarded as a genius…people nowadays prefer the simplistic approach.