In Chapter 1 we discussed the basics of the topology optimization method applied to compliance minimization. Due to the simple form of the compliance minimization problem, this problem was used as the fundamental test case in the initial developments of the topology optimization method. Despite its simplicity, the compliance minimization problem gives rise to non-trivial theoretical and numerical problems such as checkerboards, mesh-dependency and existence issues, and convergence to local minima. These problems have to be dealt with before one can proceed to more advanced applications and objective functions.