Minimalism

Remove anything that isn't essential, leave only what can justify its own presence. That's the whole premise. It draws partly from Japanese design principles and partly from Bauhaus functionalism, with 1960s minimalist art feeding into the same current, though these developed separately before eventually converging into what gets called minimalist design now.

Dieter Rams led design at Braun from 1961 to 1995 and produced the movement's most quoted line, less, but better. That thinking later shaped Apple's product design under Jony Ive. The common failure is mistaking emptiness for restraint. Good minimalist work actually takes serious deliberate decision-making, because every remaining choice is fully exposed.