About Us

I spent six years asking one question.

Does this object deserve to exist?

At Muji, that question was my job. I was a product designer on the daily-goods team — stationery, kitchen tools, storage, small home objects. My work was to look at a sketch, a prototype, a finished product, and ask whether it earned its place in someone's home. Most of the time, the answer was no. And we killed it. We moved on.

That question followed me when I left Muji in 2019.

I opened a small design studio in Portland, Maine, called Fewer & Better. I make a handful of objects each year — slowly, in small batches — and I spend the rest of my time thinking about something I didn't expect to care so much about:

Gift giving.

Because here's what I noticed: the people who ask me for help aren't the ones who don't care. They're the ones who care too much. They're tired of giving things that get re-donated within six months. They love someone who "has everything." They feel the weight of choosing the wrong thing.

They want to do better. They just don't know how.

So I started this blog. Not to tell you what to buy — but to help you see what's worth giving. To share what I learned about objects, about space, about the quiet power of giving less.

I live in an 800-square-foot house in Portland's East End with my husband David, a woodworker who built most of our furniture by hand, and our Siamese cat Chisel. My wardrobe has 33 items. I pickle vegetables, brew kombucha, and spend Saturday mornings at a ceramics studio where my work is still very much a work in progress.

Every December, I design a "Please Don't Buy Me This" PDF for friends to send their families. Because sometimes the kindest gift you can give a minimalist is respecting their space.

That's what this site is about.

Not less love. Less stuff.

Give less. Mean more.

— Lena Norwood

Portland, Maine