So, I’d been hearing this name, Dario Ferrari, popping up here and there. Not the car guy, obviously. Someone else. Whispers in some obscure forums, a blurry picture in an old design mag my uncle had. Sounded like one of those design guru types, you know? The kind that strips everything down to its bare bones.
I got it in my head that this Dario Ferrari fella was all about, like, extreme minimalism. Not just a clean desk, but like, one pen, one notebook, a chair, a table, that’s it. Everything had to be super plain, almost invisible. I thought, “Okay, I’m gonna try this. Declutter my life, starting with my workspace.” Sounded easy enough at the time.
My Big “Ferrari” Experiment
First thing I did was clear out my desk. Man, the amount of junk I had! Piles of it. I chucked out old cables, ancient sticky notes, pens that didn’t work. Felt good for a bit, I won’t lie. Then I tried to arrange what was left according to this “Ferrari” idea I’d cooked up in my head. I wanted everything to have, like, its own perfect spot, with tons of empty space around it. Pure focus, that was the goal.
- Got rid of my comfy mousepad because it had a logo. Too “loud,” I figured.
- Tried to use only one type of pen, a really sleek black one.
- Hid all my chargers and extra wires in a single box, which, let me tell you, was a real pain to get to every single time.
- Stared at my monitor for ages, wondering if the stand was too “fussy” or “ornate.” Seriously.
I spent a whole weekend on this. Moving stuff around, hiding stuff, even considered painting a wall a specific shade of grey I imagined this Ferrari guy would approve of. My partner definitely thought I’d finally lost it, watching me measure spaces between objects.
Here’s the thing, though. After a few days of living with it, it was just… annoying. Super annoying. My “Zen” workspace, my “Ferrari-inspired” minimalist haven, was impractical as all hell. Need a different colored pen for a note? Tough luck, stick to the black. Want to quickly charge my phone while working? Nope, gotta embark on an archaeological dig into that blasted box. My back started hurting from the “minimalist” chair I’d swapped in – which basically means it was cheap and uncomfortable – just because it looked “cleaner” than my old ergonomic one.
And the kicker? I tried to find more concrete information about this Dario Ferrari, his actual work, his real philosophy, you know, beyond the vague stuff. And guess what? It was tough. Really tough. The stuff I found was either super abstract, pointed to like five different guys named Dario Ferrari (none of whom seemed to be this ultra-minimalist demigod I’d built up in my mind), or was just someone else’s interpretation. Maybe the whole thing was just a vibe I’d picked up and completely blown out of proportion. Or maybe he was just some niche designer from the 70s whose actual stuff was way different from what I imagined.
So, What Happened In The End?
Well, I ended up bringing most of my stuff back. Not all of it, mind you. That initial clear-out was genuinely useful. Got rid of a load of actual trash and things I hadn’t touched in years. But the whole super-strict, almost painful minimalism? Nah. Not for me. My desk is still pretty tidy now, much tidier than before, but it’s functional again. It’s got my comfortable mousepad back, a couple of small plants for some life, and yes, even a slightly “fussy” monitor stand that actually works for me.
It was a weird little project, this whole Dario Ferrari thing. Made me think, though. Sometimes we chase these ideas, these aesthetics, these names we hear about, without really knowing the full story or if they even make sense for our actual lives. It’s like everyone’s looking for that one magic bullet for a perfect life, or a perfect desk in my case. Turns out, my own slightly messy, but working, system was way better for me than some half-baked ideal I got from a name I barely knew anything solid about.
So yeah, that was my little adventure with the ghost of Dario Ferrari, or whatever it was. Learned a bit about myself, and that a comfortable chair is always, always, a good investment. No amount of minimalist chic is worth a sore back.
