Style
Something akin to style
A particular deficiency of which they all partake
Illa de la Discòrdia
The discoveries you make in the making
Style is an expression of the interest you take in the making of every sentence.
It emerges, almost without intent, from your engagement with each sentence.
It's the discoveries you make in the making of the prose itself.Where ambiguity rules, there is no "style"—or anything else worth having.
Pursue clarity instead.
In the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself.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.
Style consists in distinction of form
Writing about style in architecture, the nineteenth-century theorist Viollet-le-Duc asserted that "style consists in distinction of form," and complained that animals expressed this better than the human species. He felt that his contemporaries had "become strangers to those elemental and simple ideas of truth which lead architects to give style to their designs," and he found it "necessary to define the constituent elements of style, and, in doing so, to carefully avoid those equivocations, those high-sounding but senseless phrases, which have been repeated with all that profound respect which most people profess for that which they do not understand."
The signature
It has long been understood that striving for originality as an end in itself is the mark of an inferior artist. The personal style of a good artist is never something that has been deliberately cultivated and forced but something that has appeared unsought as inevitably as the personal style of a man's handwriting.
But since artists of note are seen to have a distinct personal style, no artist can hope to make a reputation in a competitive society unless he too can show a distinctive style which easily differentiates his work from that of other artists and draws attention to it. Therefore artists of little capability or uncertain vocation will take great care to make their work look 'different', whereas those with any certainty in them will know that their work cannot help but look different from that of other people any more than signatures can.
It is worth reflecting that the fact of the unmistakable individuality of each man's signature is one foundation of modern commerce everywhere. To establish the individuality of it one need not write it vertically up the page in letters two inches high. And yet there are only twenty six letters, and everyone else uses them too.
An engine of technological difference
Whether at the level of national "technological styles" that shape and differentiate the nature of "same" technologies in different national contexts, or the simple but consequential variations by which industrial commodities are brought into, enlivened, and sustained within the circumstances of individual homes and lives, repair may constitute an important engine by which technological difference is produced and fit is accomplished.
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.
Style is not separate from substance
Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.
The young writer should learn to spot them - words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning but that soon burst in air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.
Eyes which do not see
Our epoch is fixing its own style day by day. It is there under our eyes—Eyes which do not see.
All the work of an epoch
Style is a unity of principle animating all the work of an epoch, the result of a state of mind which has its own special character.
Our own epoch is determining, day by day, its own style.
Our eyes, unhappily, are unable yet to discern it.Shoes
It was perhaps a pedantic matter over which to come to such a decision, but shoes are supreme symbols of aesthetic, and hence by extension psychological, compatibility. Certain areas and coverings of the body say more about a person than others: shoes suggest more than pullovers, thumbs more than elbows, underwear more than overcoats, ankles more than shoulders.
Controlled!
Braun design is greatly reduced - stripped of all that is unnecessary. Nevertheless, there is a strong aesthetic characterized by balance, order and harmony.
Self-control is very important. Although my own taste is involved it always has to be under control. Not suppressed though! Controlled!
When design gets too easy
Design has invariably exhibited styles because some clear limitations on freedom of choice are psychologically necessary to nearly all designers. When design gets too easy it becomes difficult.
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.
Typography exists to honor content
In a world rife with unsolicited messages, typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. Typography with anything to say therefore aspired to a kind of statuesque transparency. Its other traditional goal is durability: not immunity to change, but a clear superiority to fashion. Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.
Typographic style
Literary style, says Walter Benjamin, “is the power to move freely in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without slipping into banality.” Typographic style, in this large and intelligence sense of the word, does not mean any particular style – my style or your style, or Neoclassical or Baroque style – but the power to move freely through the whole domain of typography, and to function at every step in a way that is graceful and vital instead of banal.
No-nonsense
Admittedly, though, however alert and aware I felt, I was probably more aware of the effects the lecture seemed to be having on me than of the lecture itself, much of which was over my head, and yet was almost impossible to look away from or not feel stirred by. This was partly due to the substitute's presentation, which was rapid, organized, undramatic, and dry in the way of people who know that what they are saying is too valuable in its own right to cheapen with concern about delivery or 'connecting' with the students. In other words, the presentation had a kind of zealous integrity that manifested not as style but as the lack of it. I felt that I suddenly, for the first time, understood the meaning of my father's term 'no-nonsense', and why it was a term of approval.
A Search for Structure
A Book by Cyril Stanley SmithThe Art of Looking Sideways
A Book by Alan FletcherCover art for Alan Fletcher's wonderfully expansive commonplace book.
Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible
A Book by Sophie Lovell & Dieter RamsThe Design of Design
A Book by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.The Nature and Art of Workmanship
A Book by David PyeThe Craftsman
A Book by Richard SennettThe Nature and Aesthetics of Design
A Book by David PyeUI and Capability
An Article by Ryan SingerI’m very conscious of whether I am affording a feature or styling it. It’s important to distinguish because they look the same from a distance.
...Affording a capability and styling it are both important. But it’s essential to know which one you are doing at a given time. Style is a matter of taste. Capability and clarity are not. They are more objective. That person standing at the edge of the chasm cares more about accomplishing their task than the details of the decor.
Whomst styles?
An Article by Robin SloanThis is a “whostyle”: an attempt to carry the ~timbre~ of an author’s voice, in the form of their design sensibility, through into a quotation. It’s the author who defines their whostyle; the quoting site just honors it, a frame around their words.
I think the whostyle makes a few arguments. Among them:
- Text is more than a string of character codes. Its design matters, typography and layout alike; these things support (or subvert!) its affect, argument, and more.
- The web should be more colorful and chaotic, along nearly every dimension. The past five years have brought a flood of new capabilities, hugely expressive — let’s use them!
- Quoting is touchy, and anything you can do to cushion it with respect and hospitality is a plus.
Design System as Style Manual With Web Characteristics
An Article by Dorian TaylorIn my opinion, what makes a designer competent is precisely their ability to credibly justify their conclusions. If you can’t do this as a designer—no matter how successful your results are—then neither I nor anybody else can tell if you aren’t just picking things at random.
What I am proposing, then, is no less than to make a designer’s entire line of reasoning a matter of permanent record. On the surface is the familiar set of prescriptions, components, examples and tutorials, like you would expect out of any such artifact. Attached to every element, though, is a little button that says You click it, and it tells you. The proximate explanation will probably not be very satisfying, so you click on the next until you get to the end, at which point you are either satisfied with the explanation, or you aren’t.
Winning by Design: The Methods of Gordon Murray
A case study of the working methods of one particularly successful designer in a highly competitive design domain - Formula One racing car design. Gordon Murray was chief designer for the very successful Brabham and McLaren racing car teams in the 1970s and 1980s. His record of success is characterised by innovative breakthroughs, often arising as sudden illuminations, based on considering the task from first principles and from a systemic viewpoint. His working methods are highly personal, and include intensive use of drawings. Personality factors and team management abilities also appear to be relevant. There are some evident similarities with some other successful, innovative designers
You need to make the step forward
Throughout a racing season there is constant, relentless pressure on the designer to keep making design improvements. But there is a limit to what can be achieved with any car design, before a jump has to be made to basically a new design, an innovation. As Gordon Murray says, ‘Given the situation and the pressure at any one time, you do get to the brick wall...I mean you're doing all these normal modifications, you know you can't go any quicker, you need to make the step forward.’
In the midst of the pressure, the fervour, the panic, he ‘used to get breakthroughs, I mean I used to get like suddenly a mental block's lifted.’
Drawing the bits
That's what is great about race car design, because even though you've had the big idea - the “light bulb” thing, which is fun - the real fun is actually taking these individual things, that nobody's every done before, and in no time at all try and think of a way of designing them. And not only think of a way of doing them, but drawing the bits, having them made and testing them.
Like designing things for the first time
Gordon Murray insists on keeping experience 'at the back of your mind, not the front' and to work from first principles when designing. For instance, in designing a component such as a suspension wishbone, 'it's all too easy - and the longer you're in design the easier it is - to say, I know all about wishbones, this is how it's going to look because that's what wishbones look like.' But if you want to make a step forward, if you're looking for ways of making it much better and much lighter, than you have to go right back to load path analysis. It is like designing things for the first time, rather than the nth time.
Wonder Plots
Working from first principles, and working in a highly organized way seem to come naturally to him, but his personal design process is much less structured than the results might suggest. Although he can tightly organize his team and run a complex racing organisation, his personal ways of designing are relatively unstructured, based on annotated, thumb-nail sketches. ‘I don't sit down and say, OK, now I've had the idea, let's see, this is a solution, these are the different ways to go, if I do this, and do that; I do lots of scribbles just to save it, before I forget.’
Gordon’s design process is based on starting with a quick sketch of a whole idea, which is then developed through many different refinements. ‘I do a quick sketch of the whole idea, and then if there's one bit that looks good, instead of rubbing other bits out, I'd put that bit to one side; I'd do it again and expand on the good bit, and drop out the bad bit, and keep doing it, doing it; and end up with all these sketches, and eventually you end up throwing ninety percent of these away.’ He also talks to himself - or rather, writes notes to himself on the sketches; notes such as ‘rubbish’, ‘too heavy’ or ‘move it this way 30mm.’ Eventually he gets to the stage of more formal, orthographic drawings, but still drawing annotated plans, elevations and sections all together, ‘Until at the end of the day the guys at Brabham used to call them “Wonder Plots”, because they used to say “It's a wonder anybody could see what was on them”!’
I never have engineers that aren't designers
Although Gordon Murray carried immense personal responsibility for the design work of his racing cars, inevitably it involved a lot of teamwork. Clearly he has been successful in inspiring others to work with him. He likes to involve team members in the design problems, and for that reason prefers to recruit all-rounders to his team; ‘I never have engineers that aren't designers.’
The problem with CAD
He also likes to work collectively, standing around a drawing board discussing problems and trying ideas.
For this kind of teamwork, and especially for conceptual design work, he finds computer aided design systems too restrictive. For the McLaren F1 super-car, he installed a five-metre long drawing board in the design office, so that the car could be drawn full size. ‘The problem with CAD for this sort of stuff is that you can never have a full-size drawing, unless you do a print, and by the time you do a print it's out of date in the concept stage.’ He also does not like the one-person emphasis of CAD screens; ‘You can only ever talk to one person at once - you stand behind and look over somebody's shoulder, which is not very good for a boss-designer relationship anyway, to have somebody standing behind you is never a good thing. To look over somebody's shoulder at a tiny little screen, it's just wrong, it's totally wrong.’
(On the other hand, he fully acknowledges that tasks like a complex suspension plot to determine the wheel envelope are ideal for CAD.)
Drawing as a means of thinking
Two-dimensional plans or sections can be seen with sketches and more diagrammatic marks all on the same piece of paper in what appears a confusing jumble.’ These sound like Gordon’s ‘wonder plots’. The architects also use their drawings as a means of thinking ‘aloud’, or ‘talking to themselves’, as Gordon put it. For example, Lawson reports the architect Richard MacCormac as saying, ‘I use drawing as a process of criticism and discovery’; and the engineer-architect Santiago Calatrava as saying, ‘To start with you see the thing in your mind and it doesn’t exist on paper and then you start making simple sketches and organizing things and then you start doing layer after layer.... it is very much a dialogue.’
The common elements in these similar descriptions are the use of drawing not only as a means of externalising cognitive images but also of actively ‘thinking by drawing’, and of responding, layer after layer and view after view, to the design as it emerges in the drawings. These observations also confirm Schön’s observation of designing as a ‘reflective conversation’ between the designer and the emerging design. It is the reliance on drawing, and the preference for the immediacy of the interaction and feedback that manual drawing gives, that makes the architects, like Gordon Murray, unenthusiastic about CAD as a conceptual design tool.
A new gestalt
The innovator has a systems mind, one that sees things in terms of how they relate to each other in producing a result, a new gestalt that to some degree changes the world.
Intense activity, then relaxation
The working style is based on periods of intense activity, coupled with other periods of more relaxed, reflective contemplation. This working style may not be a reflection of a particular personality trait, but a necessary aspect of creative work, which requires alternating intense effort with relaxation.
Strategic, not tactical
The working methods of the innovative designer are, for the most part, not systematic; there is little or no evidence of the use of systematic methods of creative thinking, for example. The innovative designer seems to be too involved with the urgent necessity of problem solving to want, or to need, to stand back and consider their working methods. Their design approach is strategic, not tactical.
Drawing for parallel design thinking
An important feature of their strategy is parallel working - keeping design activity going at many levels simultaneously. The best cognitive aid for supporting and maintaining parallel design thinking is drawing. Drawing with the conventional tools of paper and pencil gives the flexibility to shift levels of detail instantaneously; allows partial, different views at different levels of detail to be developed side by side, or above and below and overlapping; keeps records of previous views, ideas and notes that can be accessed relatively quickly and inserted into the current frame of reference; permits and encourages the simultaneous, non-hierarchical participation of co-workers, using a common representation.
The drawing of partial solutions or representations also aids the designer’s thinking processes, and provides some ‘talk-back’. As well as drawing, innovative designers frequently like to undertake practical work related to the design solution, such as building models or mock-ups, or participating in construction.
A small team of committed coworkers
The innovative designer also likes, perhaps needs, to work with a small team of committed co-workers who share the same passions and dedication.