Knolling Your Polling Place

Many of you are familiar with artist Tom Sachs’s video, #8 in his Ten Bullets series, “Always Be Knolling.” To knoll, inspired by the sort it out, line it up aesthetic of Florence Knoll’s office interiors and Herbert Matter’s Knoll graphics, is to eliminate the unnecessary, group by purpose, and arrange at 90 degrees. Designers do it all the time, and, in my experience, largely unconsciously. I’m looking down at my own desk now: phone and calendar, stacked, on the left. Pad and Post-Its, parallel, on the right. Laptop and screen, center. Books for future projects, stacked by topic, on a nearby surface.