Comments on The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness

tom matrullo — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:36 GMT

“Postrel begins The Substance of Style with a few examples to illustrate how ‘aesthetics is the way we communicate through the senses.’ “

“To keep things in perspective Postrel is quick to point out that ‘form has its own power and worth, but it does not inevitably trump content.’”

These two quotes illustrate how discussions of aesthetics can oscillate between different fundamental definitions if the term. If aesthetics is the way we communicate through the senses, then one might rhetorically ask, how else do we communicate? Thus aesthetics assumes a large and substantial field of inquiry into communication and signification; in fact, it becomes equivalent to a field that would yoke semiotics and epistemology.

But if aesthetics is reduced merely to packaging and form, then it can be easily separated from “content” and falls back into the very different notional arena of taste and beauty, where the stakes are less compelling than her argument might at first appear.

Andrei Herasimchuk — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

As a counterpoint to the Norman quote, I offer the following.

“Well-designed objects are soul mates. They seem always to go together; their compatibility depends not on any distinctive style or age or value but on their intrinsic aesthetic qualities.

A Corbusier lounge chair can be at home in almost any surroundings. An African sculpture may adorn and be in harmony with a style of decoration it was never intended to accomodate.

A nineteenth-century Thonet rocker made in Vienna, for example, is compatible with an eigtheenth-century Shaker rocker made in New Lebanon. Like the wild horse of Lascaux, they are old but not old-fashioned.

The Shakers were ascetics, as were the constructivists, the suprematists, the artists of the Bauhaus, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, and others. All of these people shared principles of economy and a reverance for materials. Religion was for the Shakers what aesthetics was for the artist. What they also shared was sensitivity, talent and a sense of discipline…

...Without the aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repitition of familiar cliches or a wild scramble for novelty. Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing effects without substance, form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form…

...The conflict between design and technology, like the conflict between form and content, is not an either/or problem, it is one of synthesis.”

-Paul Rand, From Lascaux to Brooklyn, pgs. 35, 40 & 41

Norman’s reasons for why designers stray are off target. Most of the problems encountered with poorly designed things has more to do with lack of “talent, sensitivity and a sense of discipline” than with the three faux-reasons given by somoene who does not practice the craft of design.

Also, the aesthetic quality of a well designed object means it is more than simply pleasing to the eye. Aesthetics works on many, many levels.

StudioDino — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

Why Designers Go Astray

“If everyday design were ruled by aesthetics, life might be more pleasing to the eye but less comfortable, if ruled by usability, it might be more comfortable but uglier. If cost or ease of manufacture dominated, products might not be attractive, functional, or durable. Clearly, each consideration has it place. Trouble occurs when one dominates all the others.

Designers go astray for several reasons. First, the reward structure of the design community tends to put aesthetics first. Design collection feature prize-winning clocks that are unreadable, alarms that cannot easily be set, can openers that mystify. Second, designers are not typical users. They become so expert in using the object they have designed that they cannot believe that anyone else might have problems; only interaction and testing with actual users throughout the design process can forestall that. Third, designers must please their clients, and the clients may not be the users.”

Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, pg 151.

kevin steele — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

Actually, a lot more people than us designers were engaged by the interactive media my company Mackerel was doing between 1990 and 1995. Before people were jaded from years of unsatisfactory experiences with shovelware CD-ROMs and the early web, studios like ours were making projects that engaged and delighted.

Sure, we had our share of misfires where the final result was less than we imagined, and a few things that just did not work right, but we made many successful pieces. A project that we made with the Royal Ontario Museum in 1993, Birdsong, is still entertaining and educating museumgoers ten years later.

Some of our work created genuine excitement among the people who were exposed to it. Certainly we had the lustre of newness working for us, but I’m not pulling your leg or embellishing the truth when I say that there were moments of magic.

lord — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

“Before the web became the main platform for interactive media we could create magic… Suddenly with the web this was no loonger possible…”

Sorry, but this was silly too. I never saw a magic cd-rom nor ever met a person who claimed to. Whatever magic you are talking about is something only designers care about. On the contrary, people describe to me the “magical” properties of the internet on a daily basis, and this has never been about aesthetics but almost always about some interaction with another person or service.

Which is where I believe aesthetics come in. As social animals I believe that humans consider the question “how will having this make me look” far more than “how will having this make me feel.”

That is why people don’t care what web sites look like, but the cut of their clothes or the shape of their car is a matter of profound concern.

Phil — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

Interesting, but aesthetics has been part of product / industrial design ever since the industry has existed. If it is about pure aesthetics, isn’t that art?

Malcolm Dean — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

Starbucks is not a new phenomenon. Coffee houses go back a few centuries, and the attraction remains the same: it’s not a matter of aesthetics, it’s a matter of gossip. Many social creatures require gathering places in which information is shared and discussed. If this activity occurs under the influence of a stimulant and accompanied by something sweet and nutritious, so much the better. Personally, I think Starbucks coffee sucks. But then, that’s just my aesthetics.

kevin steele — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

Aesthetics are more than just style, especially when creating interactive experiences. Aesthetic decisions that are driven by the meaning of a work create resonance. Let’s not forget that more senses are engaged by interactive media, and some interactive media is interested in more than just information delivery.

One of the things I care a lot about is how projects feel. In the days of kiosk/cd-rom design we were able to carefully craft how inetractive objects felt, the subtle feedback that could be offered to communicate so much to the user. The very nature of the early web took so much out of the control of the designer and put it under the ‘control’ of the browser and the chaos of the unpredictable internet.

Before the web became the main platform for interactive media we could create magic at that moment the audience made a choice, offering many levels of response. Just the right sound at the right moment, just the right transition that told the story of how the state was changing, just the right delay so that meaning registered. We could make something *feel* beautiful, responsive, solid.

Suddenly with the web this was no loonger possible—the moment the audience made a choice the browser took over and offered an empty page and a long wait. And whether or not the link would work or fail, the first seconds felt the same. Apprehension…

The flimsy feel and fickle behaviour of the early web made most aesthetic concerns a waste of designer, client and audience bandwidth. This is no longer the case.

andrew — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

“People in poorer countries (or westerners earlier this century) couldn’t care less about aesthetics. If something works, and they can afford it, then that’s enough for them.”

This is a pretty shallow dismissal of “poorer countries”, which themselves have exquisitely refined senses of taste. They just happen to be totally different then yours.

Most of this book summary strikes me as a big “so what.” I guess that Postrel’s not really writing for an audience that’s been engaged with these issues for some time. Frankly, it sounds like an overlong article in ID or Wired. And incidently, book reviews are far more useful if the reviewer has a point of view about the book, rather than just restating its argument. Is there nothing worth criticizing in Postrel?

Daan Hoogland — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:35 GMT

When you are to choose, between two items with the same functionality and quality and one of them looks beautifull and the other doesn’t, you’d probably choose the first one. When the functionality-criteria are met, the aesthetic choices become more important. and of course, Anthony, people cán afford aesthetics now; but isn’t that just the reason people use it to express their taste and with that their identity? Of course form follows function, but the story doesn’t criticize functionality in a whole and is set in a 1st world setting.

Anthony Colfelt — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:34 GMT

“Postrel points out that “’form follows emotion’ has supplanted ‘form follows function’.” How else do you explain the success of the iMac, Volkswagen Beetle, and the Michael Graves Toaster at Target?”

Sorry, this is just rubbish. Of course form still follows function. If the iMac, Volkswagen Beetle etc didn’t function exceptionally well, they’d have been a flop.

The notion that people value aesthetics more now than they did then is a misnoma. People can afford aesthetics now, where before this was a luxury. As the population becomes more affluent and companies cotton on to the fact that people have always wanted aesthetics, goods become cheaper and more aesthetic.

People in poorer countries (or westerners earlier this century) couldn’t care less about aesthetics. If something works, and they can afford it, then that’s enough for them. If aesthetic goods were cheap enough, they’d have those instead, because the desire for beauty and individuality is something that runs deeper than trend. It roots in the way humans value themselves. This isn’t transient, in my opinion.

Luke — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:34 GMT

Looking at this from a software perspective – this all seems like another excuse for poor usability. No doubt the swathes of “experience designers” will take excess comfort that style is king once more.

Of course attractive products are valued if the function and purpose is fullfilled, but very often “stylish” products conciously undo default behaviours and user expectations with “new and attractive” ways of doing user interfaces – L