Constraints
The blank canvas paralyzes. The empty page terrifies. Infinite possibility offers no traction. Constraints provide the resistance creativity needs to push against.
Stravinsky wrote in Poetics of Music (1942): “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.”
He composed The Rite of Spring for an orchestra with unusual instrumentation — eight horns, five trumpets — not because he needed them all but because the specific limitations shaped the music. The constraint generated rather than restricted.
Twitter’s 140-character limit (later 280) created a form. Haiku’s 5-7-5 syllable structure enables rather than restricts expression. Dogme 95’s rules against artificial lighting and non-diegetic music produced distinctive films. The constraint removes decisions, allowing focus on what remains.
The 37signals approach to software: start with less. Fewer features mean fewer decisions mean faster shipping. The constraint forces prioritization that abundance prevents. You discover what’s essential only when you can’t have everything.
Constraints come in types: physical (materials won’t bend that way), legal (regulations prohibit this), economic (budget limits options), temporal (deadline forces completion), self-imposed (rules chosen for their effects). Self-imposed constraints are tools. Chosen limits are design decisions.
Premature optimization is the opposite problem — constraining too early, before understanding what matters. The art is knowing when constraints help and when they’re premature.
The paradox: freedom from constraint often produces mediocrity. Within constraints, every choice carries weight. The sonnet form makes each word fight for its place. Unlimited words produce blogs.
Go Deeper
Books
- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander — 253 patterns for design. The constraint is the pattern. Foundational for architecture and software alike.
- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander — The philosophy behind Pattern Language. Harder, more essential.
- Poetics of Music by Igor Stravinsky — The composer on constraint as freedom. Short and quotable.
Essays
- Getting Real by 37signals (Basecamp) — Web-available book on building products with less. Constraint-driven development.
Related: [[affordances]], [[satisficing]], [[the-jig]]