I find that the act of disagreeing with a sharp takedown sharpens my appreciation of the work in question. If I have to think a bit harder about what I like and why I like it, that’s fine by me, especially when it’s something that has been almost universally acclaimed.
...It’s not that I long for an epidemic of gleeful brutality but I will always cherish the right of critics to express their hate, hate, hate in the ultimate service of what they love, love, love.
A website is its own, singular thing. We know it isn’t a book, a TV show, a film, or a song, but our language is limited to talking about it in those restrictive boxes. A website is a mix of all of those things, and none of those things. It is influenced by place and time. A website changes with age. It can evolve and regress.
It was then I wondered if the problem wasn’t that web design lacked its own Emigré. What if we actually lacked a shared language to critically discuss web design? Art, architecture, and even graphic design, have critics and historians that give context to new work through the lenses of culture and important work from the past.
[Designer News] is good, useful content, but most of it is written by designers themselves. Taken as a whole, it’s also a useful illustration of something vital that our industry lacks: balanced, insightful, independent writing that critically evaluates the profession.
There is a place for discussing technique, for which forums like r/Design, Designer News, and the like are well suited. Yet expecting these platforms to provide insightful, serious critical discussion is like going to McDonald’s for an artisanal sandwich. Sure, they may advertise that, but that’s not really what you’re getting.
Form comes from wonder. Wonder stems from our 'in touchness' with how we were made. One senses that nature records the process of what it makes, so that in what it makes there is also the records of how it was made. In touch with this record we are in wonder. This wonder gives rise to knowledge. But knowledge is related to other knowledge and this relation gives a sense of order, a sense of how they inter-relate in a harmony that makes all things exist. From knowledge to sense of order we then wink at wonder and say How am I doing, wonder?