Let’s Hear It for Quiet Design

Sometimes we fall for design because it does its job so well, maybe even solving a problem that has bugged us for ages. It could be because it scores lots of eco-points, or takes a dazzling leap forward in technology. Unfashionable though it is to say so, it may simply be because it looks good.

But there are also examples of design that come to mean just as much to us more subtly, by dint of being intelligent, elegant and appropriate. This is what I call “quietly good design,” because it is neither showy nor spectacular, just gently pleasing.

A year ago I made a shamelessly subjective selection of “quietly good design,” which included a Coca-Cola can, the new British coins, the typeface Georgia and a series of paperback books by the French publishing house, Zuma. More examples have come along since then, and here are some of the best.