29. Know When to Say When.

Sometimes, we designers need to know when to stop and when to leave well enough alone. Allow me to use a somewhat silly example to reinforce this rather important princple. Take the Pillsbury Funny Face Drink Mix package designs from the Sixties and Seventies. Using a simple visual timeline, you can see that with each revision some of the soul of the original is lost.

Granted, each design may have been the work of a different designer with a different client mandate - but the end result definitely shows that they would have been much better off keeping the original design. It has fewer elements but it also has more personality while not trying too hard.

Let's all remember that sometimes, a light touch is best used when revising something that already works well. And when designing a new project - the craft is occassionally in what you do not add, more so than what you do.