MINIMALISSIMO EDITED
This monthly edition of the Minimalissimo Newsletter is supported by aprile, the hanging chair
The Future of Minimalissimo
Hello, wonderful lovers of everything minimal. Today’s newsletter is gonna be a bit different because I have plenty of things to share with you all since Carl and I had discussed at length what we’re doing here with Minimalissimo, what we want to build, and what we want to spend our time on in the future. It’s going to be quite a long read so make yourself a cup of tea or brew some coffee and get comfortable.
As you might have noticed, the web is going through quite the odd phase lately. More and more sites are shutting down — even very old, established ones — and search is getting progressively worse. And in addition to that, social media is slowly getting flooded with artificially generated content.
Mimo’s heyday is long gone. There was a time, back in the late 2010s, when sites like Minimalissimo were playing an important role in the web ecosystem and thousands of people were visiting the site daily. Over time though, that audience slowly drifted away. Consumption shifted, from websites to social media. We followed the flow and did our best to adapt to an evolving landscape while trying to remain true to our values. We never compromised the quality of our curation and we always kept the website as distraction-free as possible. And I think you’ll agree if I say we succeeded at both of those things.
I coded and co-designed multiple versions of Minimalissimo. I transitioned the site from WordPress to Kirby. I moved tens of thousands of images across servers and spent hours of my life trying to preserve 15 years' worth of URLs while doing all these things. I didn’t start this project, but I truly care about it.
Last year, Carl was considering stopping the curation and putting the site in archival mode. I pitched him the idea of letting me curate it for a while and see if I could figure out ways to bring back some of its former glory. I coded the new stream, added the book directory, updated the navigation, and even coded a new directory. But during these months one thing became obvious: both Carl and I want to spend our time doing something different.
For 15 years, Minimalissimo has been a place where we collected content created by others, but we’re now at a point where we feel the need to spend more time creating things ourselves. We considered the possibility of tearing down the current site and rebranding Minimalissimo in order to make it something completely different. But ultimately that didn’t feel like a good decision. After all, 15 years of digital history are worth preserving. The site will stay up, and I am planning to make a — probably final — new version that is going to act as the archive for all the content published over the years. The Minimalissimo Shop is going to close and our social media profiles are already in hibernation and they’ll stay that way.
Is this the end then? Not quite. We thought about it, but it’s not like Carl and I are going to stop browsing the web, collecting references for minimal designs. We’re both passionate about minimalism and we’ll continue to be so. And so it would be a shame to not have an outlet of some sort to share our findings. That outlet is going to be this newsletter.
On the 1st of every month we’ll send out a newsletter with our thoughts and findings. You can expect all sorts of minimalism-related content in there, and the same high level of curation. It’s going to be different, with a slower pace, and a different approach, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it and hopefully find some value in it.
What’s next?
You might be wondering what we’re going to focus on next. As mentioned, we want to spend more time creating, we want to increase our creative output. And in order to do that we need a creative outlet, and that outlet is going to be called FormFeelingFunction.
I’m not sure there is a correct word to describe what this thing is going to be. FFF will be a mix between a digital studio — Carl and I do work together on digital projects for clients and we plan to do more of those — and a shop where we plan to sell a mix of digital experimental products as well as limited runs of physical items. But we also plan to share things that inspire us and that we think are interesting. Unsurprisingly it’s going to be minimal.
My personal goal is to convince Carl to produce a physical product that's not black, white, or grey. Wish me luck.
Thank you for reading this far and thank you for sticking with us on this journey. As always, my inbox is open, so if you have thoughts you want to share you can reach me at manu@minimalissimo.com
Highlights
Grillno Restaurant by Keiji Ashizawa Design
Tracks Headphones by AIAIAI
3 Seater Sofa by Standard Equipment
This monthly edition of the Minimalissimo newsletter was supported by aprile, the hanging chair
inspired by spring days and designed by Matteo Modica, aprile is a simple suspended chair that oozes elegance—a floating seat, shaped after spring petals, swinging gently. designed and handcrafted in Italy with artisanal love.
whether you're looking for visual inspiration or design insights, you can visit our gallery to discover the very best of minimalism in art and design.
minimalissimo.com