Fashion
Substance over style
By the 1930s, the teardrop shape, known since the turn of the century to be the form of least resistance, was incorporated into Boeing and Douglas aircraft, and, being the contemporary artifact that best symbolized the future, the airplane set the style for things generally. The most static of mundane objects were streamlined for no functional purpose, and chromed and rounded staplers, pencil sharpeners, and toasters were hailed as the epitome of design.
...Though all design is necessarily forward-looking, all design or design changes are not necessarily motivated by fickle style trends. The best in design always prefers substance over style, and the lasting concept over the ephemeral gimmick.
Form eschews function
Many of the most contemporary silverware patterns appear to be designed more for how the pieces look than for how they work...There is a kind of design that can ignore function entirely. We might say that this is a "form eschews function" school of design, and one that places considerations of aesthetics, novelty, and style above everything else.
But to design from the handle is to shoot from the hip when it comes to silverware, for the business end of the individual pieces is where the action is going to be. Though Emily Post may not have perceived that tradition emerges out of the minimization of failure, there is no excuse for a designer to overlook the fact. Yet this is exactly what modern product designers seem to do when they strive so hard for a striking new look that they throw out function with tradition.
Good design is practical design
In the context of web design, Dieter Rams’ principle is not only a resounding criticism against mindless trends and meaningless decorations. It is a humanist reminder to put material honesty and social responsibility above the pursuit of the “pixel perfect” design.
Good design is timeless
Good design is timeless. Aiming at timelessness is a way to make yourself find the best answer: if you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself. Some of the greatest masters did this so well that they left little room for those who came after. Every engraver since Durer has had to live in his shadow.
Aiming at timelessness is also a way to evade the grip of fashion. Fashions almost by definition change with time, so if you can make something that will still look good far into the future, then its appeal must derive more from merit and less from fashion.
A new wearer of clothes
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Who did the teaching, then?
It has been contended sometimes that our response to works of art is entirely learnt and in no way innate; but the questions 'Who did the teaching, then? and how?' have not, I fancy, been much investigated. This contention is very true of our responses to styles and fashions, but it is not true of our response to beauty.
Tradition
Change is of the essence of tradition. Our declining civilization has largely lost the conception of tradition as continuous change by small variations – as evolution, in other words – and can produce only fashions which, one after another, appear, live for a little while, and die without issue.
A timeless quality
Of all Rams’s products, the 606 Universal Shelving System is perhaps his most successful in fulfilling his own principles of good design. It is still in production today, some fifty years after its conception. The system is distinctive yet unobtrusive, and when the shelves and cabinets are filled, its slim profile allows it to fade quietly into the background.
Its ‘plainness’ lends it a timeless quality that has transcended the vagaries of fashion like no other of Rams’s designs. It was conceived in such a way as to optimize its function as simply and in as many different situations as possible, while still permitting upgrades and alterations without falling into obsolescence: all later adaptations and additions could still be integrated into the original structure and sizes.
"Fashion objects are not capable of being long-lived," said Rams in 2007. "We simply cannot afford this throw-away mentality anymore. Good design has to have built-in longevity. I believe that the secret of the longevity of my furniture lies in its simplicity and restraint. Furniture should not dominate, it should be quiet, pleasant, understandable and durable."
Woodblock Prints
An Essay from The Beauty of Everyday Things by Yanagi SōetsuIt seems to me that many printmakers are suffering under a delusion. Looking at current trends, it appears that recent prints are simply copying fine art and painting. Some printmakers are working in the nanga style of painting. Others are attempting to reproduce the effects of oil. Some cleverly contrived prints are often difficult to distinguish from paintings done with a brush. The question arises: Why are these printmakers working in the medium of woodblock printing at all?
For prints to follow in the footsteps of painting has very little meaning. The art of the brush and palette should be left to the brush and palette.
Reading Design
A WebsiteReading Design is an online archive of critical writing about design. The idea is to embrace the whole of design, from architecture and urbanism to product, fashion, graphics and beyond. The texts featured here date from the nineteenth century right up to the present moment but each one contains something which remains relevant, surprising or interesting to us today.
Design Thinking
Ducks and decorated sheds
A duck is a building whose confirmation is a complete symbol or icon. A decorated shed is a building to which symbols, often commonplace signs, have been attached.
Clinging to ideas
Another aspect of design thinking that was evident in the foregoing case studies is the tenacity with which designers will cling to major design ideas and themes in the face of what at times might seem insurmountable odds. Often the concept the designer has in mind can only come to fruition if a large number of apparently countervailing conditions can be surmounted.
Even when severe problems are encountered, a considerable effort is made to make the initial idea work, rather than to stand back and adopt a fresh point of departure.
A concept of style
It is a concept based not on the classification of various physical features of architecture and urban design but on the problem-solving process itself. We have seen that the final outcome of a design process is strongly determined by at least three aspects of that process:
- the subject matter of the organizing principles which are adopted,
- the manner in which these principles are interpreted and reinterpreted in the context of the problem at hand, and
- the sequent of applying such organizing principles.
Consistency in style among the output of designers can thus be understood as a habitual way of doing things, of solving problems.
Form and figure
Form applies to “a configuration with natural meaning or none at all,” whereas figure applies to “a configuration whose meaning is given by culture."
Design skirmishes
it is apparent that the unfolding of the design process assumed a distinctly episodic structure, which we might characterize as a series of related skirmishes with various aspects of the problem at hand.
As the scope of the problem became more determined and finite for the designer, the episodic character of the process seems to have become less pronounced. During this period a systematic working out of issues and conditions took hold within the framework that had been established. This phenomenon is not at all surprising when we consider the fundamental difference between moments of problem solving when matters are poorly defined and those with clarity and sufficiency of structure.
Within the episodic structure of the process, the problem, as perceived by the designer, tends to fluctuate from being rather nebulous to being more specific and well-defined. Furthermore, moments of "blinding" followed by periods of backtracking take place, where blinding refers to conditions in which obvious connections between various considerations of importance go unrecognized by a designer.
Such plans were deemed efficient
The terrain of cities was subdivided along the lines of distinct and discrete patterns of use, with very little opportunity for mixing (separation and concentration of functions). After all, the home environment should be just that…while places of work should be aggregated and serviced with their appropriate supporting functions.
Such plans were deemed efficient.
Constrained by the medium
The inevitable reciprocation that occurs between the act of drawing and the thinking associated with it. The hand moves, the mind becomes engaged, and vice versa. We might ask: How much does the medium of expression actually constrain a design process?
A medium has a way of constraining our choices, and this influence may not involve conscious choice at all. The planner, in the end, sees and understands only those things for which they can provide expression.
Autonomous constraints
Autonomous or independent constraints do not derive from the problem as given and understood…there was nothing in the problem statement, or brief, that required any reference be made to it. This constraint, introduced by the designers, usefully transcended the givens of the problem situation.
Unless the entire problem at hand can be solved using strictly problem-oriented constraints, we have to step outside the known problem context in order to continue problem solving activity.
The strange familiar and the familiar strange
The problem solver, when confronted with a new and yet unsolved problem, overlays the structure of the unsolved problem with an apparently similar problem with which he or she is experienced.
Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange are also principally based on the use of analogy.