minimalsites.com - Minimal Web Design Gallery and Minimalist Community

Heritage Macbook Sleeve by Hard Graft

Beautiful.

These days, football stadiums are built to become city landmarks in their own right.

Luckily, the good people of Dutch design firm GRO design set out to design an equally spectacular and memorable foosball table. A team of designers (Graham Hinde, Roland Bird, Roger Swales, Paul-Etienne Mélinge and Frank Heijlighen) put their minds together, and gave us 11.

Wow.

We actually bought a foosball table at our office this very week (true story), but this beauty completely overshadows ours (thx, Lorenzo ;-)

Shiny steel players with red numbers

This can compete with any football stadium design

Come hither…

The glossy white field loves the light

.

.

Time for action…

.

.

Action!

Minimalism on my Mac: Not just for the sake of it:

There’s a fine line between minimalism for productivity, and minimalism for the sake of it. I don’t take minimalism to the extreme. I like having the actions menu in my Finder toolbar, and I like having the path bar visible. I like having Mail’s toolbar visible, even though you can get Mail to look like two panes of white. Sometimes I want to have the Dock visible even though I can manage with it hidden, but I’m not afraid to hit the keyboard shortcut and bring it in full view. They’re useful UI elements that I could do without, but it wouldn’t have a positive influence on my workflow.

Milind gets it.

Meet Bucefalo, a dauntingly dark sofa by Italian designer Emanuele Canova. Inspiration came from the figure of Bucefalo, a legendary black horse which only Alexander The Great succeeded to tame.

The sofa has multiple functions: it allows you to sit, to lounge, and to store your books or design objects (thx, Lorenzo).

Beautiful asymmetric line

The Bucefalo offers space for book storage

The square black steel frame both complements and contrasts with the curved black seat

Close-up (yes, really)

Now to find a house for this black beauty!

Swiss architects ern+ heinzl Architekten believe an open office creates a learning atmosphere. They feel this approach is great for bouncing ideas back and forth.

ern+ heinzl Architekten designed the KSA Kurt Salmon Associates, headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany. You could be chilled by the coldness of the minimalist concept. Or you can be inspired by a large, open white space that encourages people to experiment. As creativity does not always happen at a desk, the space is comprised of a seating activity area and a standing activity area.

I imagine myself walking through an office that radiates white. A zone that captures light and holds it for your emotional senses and delight. A living thing. Is light the most sensous perception of space in architecture?

On Twitter recently, I wrote: ‘The purest beauty in life is in the ellipsis.’

Someone then asked: ‘How is an omission the purest form of beauty?’

This is the essence of minimalism. The ellipsis is the punctuation mark (…) that indicates an intentional omission. From Wikipedia: “An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence.”

If that description doesn’t inspire thoughts of beauty in you, you might not be a minimalist.

A pause in speech is silence. Silence is one of the most profound ways to connect with your inner voice, with nature. Silence is the best part of speech.

An unfinished thought is any thought, really — if a thought is “finished” it’s dead. We are all of us in transition, all the time, and our thoughts can be no exception.

Trailing off into silence implies that there is much left unsaid … that what is said is only the start.

Intentional omission is the foundation of minimalism: we leave things out because they are unnecessary, and retain only what we need or use or love. Omitting the unnecessary is a thing of pure beauty.

…

Say less, and hear more.

Do less, and have a greater impact.

Make less noise, and appreciate the silence.

Send out fewer emails, and make each one count.

Tweet less, and each one becomes more meaningful.

Have fewer possessions, and enjoy the space.

Have fewer “friends”, but make each relationship stronger.

Appreciate the spaces between everything.

…

simpledesks:

After over 150 posts showcasing desks from around the world, I have finally gotten around to getting some shots of my own desk. Inspired by my friend John Young and built by my friend Simon Thorel, I had my desk built to be as simple and useful to me as possible.

Oh, and my fish’s name is Jemaine.

Jeepers. This is wonderful.

I would love to visit Pat one day and work next to him but I would simply clutter up the joint.