We live in a high speed world.
Our Wi-Fi is lightning fast. Food arrives in minutes. Attention spans? Just 70 seconds or less. Fashion changes every six months.
Ads are tested and changed daily. Packaging gets an upgrade every year. Brand logos are changing every 5 years. Positioning statements and target audiences shift constantly.
After a decade in advertising, I was wired to function the same way, inside the same machine, against ticking clocks —- always chasing releases, always late, always pulling all-nighters, always breathless.
And then I paused.
Something shifted inside me when I made the conscious move to design. There was a slowing down in the engine. Don’t get me wrong — the fire was just as bright, but the machine just didn’t feel the need to move at the same RPM as before.
Design, unlike advertising, had a longer shelf life — and it demanded more input too. More reasoning, more research, and more thought in every step. It is at this point that I really started paying attention to every little detail, and thanks to my seniors, there was already a lot of that in my work. But here was work which demanded each container to be just so — with clear causes and reasons behind each element — and that’s when this stark difference between my previous life and this new one as a designer came to light.
So when I started Ashabhi Design, our independent studio, I was driven by just one thing — the need to focus on slow design. Inspired by the global movement of slow design, I felt the time was right to implement it in our work and lives, to not only become better designers, but also better humans.
The six principles of slow design are a way of thinking, created to inspire designers to do things differently. They were originally outlined by Carolyn F. Strauss and Alastair Fuad-Luke as a response to ‘the need for new tools and strategies for evaluating design with a view to social, cultural and environmental sustainability.’[1]
Slow design goes far beyond the act of designing. It is an approach that encourages a slower, more considered, and reflective process, with the goal of positive well-being for individuals, societies, environments, and economies. Slow design positions itself against the “fast design” of the current industrial paradigm, which is governed by unsustainable cycles of fashion and over-consumption, business ethics, and an anthropology that defines everyone as customers. The use of “slow” as an adjective, or instructive adverb, deliberately introduces ambiguity in this context; it implies that time is implicit in all facets of (the) design, and that the purpose is to slow down the process, the outcome, and the effects of the outcome.[2]
They aren’t meant as absolutes, but as guides — open to personal interpretation by every designer. With due respect to The Slow Design Principles[3], here are mine:
1. Reflect:
Contemplation and connection — considering the brief and its purpose.
I see this as the first step in cooking a great dish: understanding the raw materials at hand and imagining the possibilities they hold. Spend the most time here.
2. Expand:
Understand the background story, craft the vision for the brand, the back story. Do your research and moodboarding. Like clouds that roll before rain starts to pour, let yourself get energised and into the ‘flow’ state. At this stage, consciously remove the element of time to free the mind.
3. Engage:
Openness and collaboration are inherent to Slow Design. Jam and discuss ideas, scribble and debate with team members to get other perspectives. Involve the client in the process of creation. Take feedback and reflect on it.
Let the final result be something sustainable you’ve arrived at after careful deliberation, not a shot in the dark hoping to find its target.
4. Evolve:
Let the idea simmer. Like a fruit that you allow to ripen on the tree. Let the design juices stew and meld together into a rich creative, even if it’s just an A/B post. Create, and then sleep on it, take another objective look at it in the morning. Designs are living breathing things, let them evolve.
5. Reveal:
A very important part of the slow design process is to infuse your work with meaning. Let your work attract with its design, but like a slow romance that unfolds like a mystery, let the deeper meaning of the elements, images, colours, words reveal themselves to the viewer. The deeper the reveal the longer the life of the design (50 years later, we’re all still marveling at the Nike logo, aren’t we?)
6. Participate:
Don’t forget to live. A designer draws very deeply from their own life and experiences. So don’t forget to go live it — go watch that movie, attend that concert, visit that exhibition, eat that cuisine, hear that music, participate in that workshop. When the creator’s life is in harmony, their work has a purpose.
Here is the thought I’d like to leave you with:
Slow is not the opposite of fast. It’s the opposite of disconnected.
At Ashabhi, we don’t chase deadlines — we chase depth. We believe good design isn’t just seen or used; it’s felt. And to make work that resonates, we must give it time — to breathe, to bloom, to reveal its meaning.
In a world wired for speed, we choose presence.
Because when we give design our full attention, it gives something meaningful back.
[1] https://slowlivingldn.com/journal/interiors/slow-design-principles/
[2] https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-7643-8140-0_251#:~:text=Expand%3A%20Slow%20design%20considers%20the,and%20life%20spans%20(Affordance).
[3] https://slowlivingldn.com/journal/interiors/slow-design-principles/
