The Art of Connecting the Dots

(Note: this article appeared first in Fast Company Design.) What do the Mona Lisa smile and the Wall Street Journal have in common? They both employ a design principle related to subtraction and minimalism. By limiting information, they engage the imagination. In the case of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci purposefully blurred smile lines […]
How 2 Million Dots Can Restore a Life

If you’ve read The Laws of Subtraction, you know that I spent time with Kevin Sprouls, the originator of the Wall Street Journal dot portrait style, known as a hedcut. Metaphorically, the art of strategically placing dots–limiting just the right amount of information–so that others may connect them (in their own way) engages the imagination. […]