The Oldest Tricks in the Design Book (That Still Works)

Image Courtesy Pinterest

Originality is often mistaken for invention. But in design, as in most creative fields, the strongest work doesn’t always come from radical change. Instead, it often emerges through subtle shifts and reworking the basics. Designers often develop their voice not by inventing entirely new forms, but by carefully altering a few fundamental elements: scale, material, color, and geometry. Enlarge or shrink a familiar shape, and its emotional weight shifts. Change a surface’s texture or finish, and it invites a different kind of touch or resistance. Place a color where it doesn’t “belong,” and suddenly it draws the eye or reframes the object’s mood. Take a simple geometric figure; a cube, a circle, an arch; and with a small subtraction, a soft curve, or a stretched edge, it becomes unexpectedly expressive. These are some of the oldest and most enduring strategies in the designer’s toolkit. They remind us that originality doesn’t always come from reinvention; more often, it comes from knowing how and where to apply just enough pressure to make the familiar feel new.

What often draws me to an idea isn’t how new it feels, but how a small shift can reframe something familiar. In my own design process, I usually begin with a simple gesture; a basic volume, a straightforward function; and then look for ways to tilt it off balance. These interventions may be minimal, but they carry weight. They’re not just refinements; they often become the core of the idea. I see these moves not as shortcuts, but as tools.

There are countless pioneering designers whose work is grounded in these kinds of subtle but deliberate shifts. Their approaches may look simple, but they require precision; knowing how far to go and when to stop. Their practices prove that these “old tricks” can completely reshape how we experience an object or space. What seems effortless is often the result of deep observation and control.

Image Courtesy Sabine Marcelis

I keep coming back to the work of a few of my favorite (and yes, all women) designers whose practices offer striking examples and operate across different aspects of design; from surface to scale, from color to form.

Take Sabine Marcelis, whose body of work is an ongoing study in surface and material. Her designs often begin with the most minimal of gestures; a rectangular volume, a soft curve; but what brings them to life is how they interact with light and material. Whether it’s her resin stools that glow like translucent soap or her glass furniture that shifts hue as you move around it, Marcelis alters perception not by layering more, but by using materiality as illusion. Her objects are often both solid and ephemeral, physical and atmospheric; a quality that emerges from minute adjustments to texture, thickness, and finish. Her restraint doesn’t limit expression; it sharpens it.

Image Courtesy Es Devlin

Es Devlin, meanwhile, works primarily at the scale of installation and stage, and her most powerful tool is size itself. Her structures begin with basic geometry; cubes, circles, voids; but by enlarging them dramatically, she creates spaces that overwhelm, absorb, or reorient the viewer. These massive forms become vessels for light, language, and projection, turning static architecture into dynamic emotional environments. A glowing tunnel becomes a portal; a simple wall becomes a screen for collective memory. Devlin uses scale not for spectacle but for immersion, allowing the audience to step into a feeling, not just observe it. Even her most grandiose gestures feel rooted in control.

Image Courtesy Tekla Evelina Severin

Tekla Evelina Severin reimagines color as both structure and story. Her spaces, sets, and still lifes use hue as a compositional force, often working with bold monochromes or striking contrasts to flatten or expand depth. With background and object rendered in the same tone, Severin plays with spatial ambiguity, challenging the viewer’s orientation. In her hands, color isn’t simply an aesthetic choice; it’s a spatial tool. She builds atmospheres where color is the architecture, bending perception and mood through carefully constructed palettes. The simplicity of her scenes belies their spatial complexity.

Image Courtesy Garance Vallée

Another favorite is Garance Vallée, who works fluidly across architecture, furniture, and scenography. Her approach begins with elementary geometries; rectangles, arches, triangles; which she subtly transforms through soft curves, off-axis intersections, and sharp edges that feel both intentional and intuitive. She often emphasizes negative space, allowing voids and cutouts to shape the visual rhythm as much as the volumes themselves, making absence just as active as presence. The result is work that feels architectural and sculptural at once; rooted in form, but open to emotion. Her use of earthy textures and mineral tones adds a grounded sensuality, giving the work a tactile depth beyond its visual clarity.

What unites these designers is not a fixation on originality for its own sake, but a quiet confidence in the familiar and a deep understanding of how to disturb it. Through shifts in scale, material, color, or form, they reframe the known with clarity and care to make something resonate differently. They’re reminders that good design doesn’t always need to be loud, sometimes it only needs to know exactly where to make its mark.

*All photographs and videos featured in this article were captured by the author unless a specific image states otherwise.