The Coke bottle entry here in the news section inspired me start this thread.
The Brilliant Adam Greenfield wrote an amazing article on "design" vs. "styling", The Bathing Ape Has No Clothes. I think this article is required reading for all archinecters. And then, discuss.
Sep 13, 05 10:35 am
It's probably true that fashion has always been more about style than design. The design of most clothes really hasn't changed all that much over the last century or so, but the style certainly has. Style is basically ephemeral.
Design gets bad when it also becomes ephemeral because that mostly also means that the real underlying design is then planned obsolescence.
It's a tough one...look at it from the perspective of human hair.
This is styled:
But this, this hair has been designed:
Get it?
Sep 13, 05 12:38 pm ·
·
No. I don't get it, and neither do you. The long hair is doing what hair is basically "designed" to do. The punk reenactor is, well, reenacting a hair style.
I couldn't agree more, and although I am fond of certain stylist-ed efforts, including offerings from A Bathing Ape and the Designer's Republic, that article articulates the clear distinction between the design discipline and stylizing.
that reminds me, on another post somewhere you (lb) mentioned a specific line-weight system that you use...care to expand?
How could the punk reenactor style hair that way unless he set out to design the critical elements like color, proportion, shorter sides, and exceptional sideburn work?
AP, I love "stylised" stuff! There's nothing wrong with liking something styled vs. designed, it's just a matter of understanding the difference. And giving credit for a brilliant job performed in either realm. It's like enjoying a really well-done commercial even for a product you hate, or even if you hate TV altogether. You may not go buy the product but you can enjoy the creative energies that went into the commercial.
I just love really well-used line weights (thank you Professor Kirby Lockard at UofA), and in my CAD drawings I'm fanatical about using them properly. My plan walls are plotted very heavily, and my dashed lines or hatches are whisper-thin, with ten levels in between.
Unfortunately I'm fanatical to the point that I start to lose money on drafting time - things are "legible enough" without the devotion I give to perfecting the line weight representation.
You could argue that perfect line weights are "designed" because they are all about the legibility of the drawing. But in my mind they make the drawing more beautiful, too - so is that style? Is style inherent in the designed, but not vice versa?
Sep 13, 05 12:59 pm ·
·
Note how MM didn't ask: "How could the punk reenactor design hair that way..."
That's a tough one, Manteno. Certainly there is a structural problem to be solved in the punker's hair - "I want it to stand 5" off my head". So maybe that's design. But from a usability standpoint, it seems like a hairstyle that is difficult to maintain. I imagine the aesthetic affect was the critical issue for this user!
LB, I think you're even confusing the issue now. What if I said I wanted my hair to only do what it naturally does? Does that mean I'm maybe designing my hair? I don't think so.
his hair seems more like art... something to look and be molded and while highly thoughtful, it lacks any true purpose. hair in itself has purpose, but design would be giving it a new purpose.... or altering how it completes it's purpose.
like hats made of hair. oh wait. someone's already done that.
ps. thats a fab article. thank you :)
Sep 13, 05 1:16 pm ·
·
ephemeral (adj)
1.Lasting for a markedly brief time.
2. Living or lasting only for a day, as certain plants or insects do.
ephemeral (noun)
1. A markedly short-lived thing.
[The puck hair is ephemeral, especially next to the long hair.]
why wouldn't we give the aesthetic credit as a function in need of design?
maybe styling is a combination/recombination of something already in existence - an updating to keep up with trends (e.g., interior decoration) where design is the production of a thing based on a design goal. fashion is certainly design, if we think of it as a situation in which materials are brought together to turn an idea into a product, whereas styling might be the pairing of a jacket and tie with attention to the hair and shoes, etc. the shopping shows on cable are not about fashion design, but about styling.
hair styling is in this vein, being a rearrangement, possibly a coloring and editing and forming of the hair which already exists. a wig, however, would be a design problem. hair still used as raw material, but a designer is needed to assemble, to set the goal for what the wig will be, how much, etc. hair styling involving extensions might be a hybrid of these...kind of like adaptive reuse?
these nifty coke bottles include two-dimensional design (the graphic) but the bottle itself is more styling - use of an existing design's content in a new context/material.
yeah, this can get you into muddy waters real quick. fun conversation though.
I know, it confuses me too. At some level I suppose you could say that any effect of hair is only aesthetic and therefore only styled.
Design (by my personal definition) has to solve some problem. You can design a solution to something as "stylistic" as getting hair to stand 5" off a human head. But does that elevate it to the same level as, to keep it in the realm of hair, the work of whoever finally solves male pattern baldness? The two problems are apples and oranges.
Those puck gals coulda been me & my best friends in high school, BTW.
Sep 13, 05 1:27 pm ·
·
The muddy water clears up real quick for me as soon as I add 'ephemerality' to the mix.
why would something epemeral not still be able to be design? i could design a sandcastle couldn't i? i don't think this would simply be 'styling' the sand.
ephemeral is simply use of a measure of time at a different scale, even by the definition you supplied above. something which lasted a day would be the entire life of an insect. so is something that lasts only for my lifetime also ephemeral? or something which lasts the lifetime of a tree?
Does everyone else call the little touches you add when you photograph one of your projects - the fresh flowers in the Aalto vase, the Aeron chair visible behind the desk (when the client actually sits in one from Ikea), the Powerbook on the desk (client uses a Dell), the casement window left 1/2 way open - "styling"? That's what I call it. I dsign the project, then for the sake of the photograph I style it.
I agree liberty. In college I had a professor that would complain that for our presentations we weren't designing, but styling the boards. Where as we spent very little time coming up with a design, but spent the all-nighters rendering, adding people & objects, etc.
How about this? An architect designs the space and the interior designer styles it. Crude link but it has truth in my experiences.
to be fair to 'interior designers', some are decorators, some are designers, some are interior architects > must be careful how we describe them, taking their level of immersion/abilities into account. some of what is called interior design deserves the moniker of design as much as anything we, product designers, or graphic designers might produce.
interior decoration is usually styling: collection of and shopping for a variety of products and furnishings and assembling it in one place. this discipline is definitely subject to trends and tends to be based in definition of surfaces and arrangement of objects.
to quote david brent, "a good idea...is a good idea forever...so...you know..."
look at all-stars. i don't know much about shoes -- i only wear them after all -- but 80 or 100 or 1000 years later people still like them. initially they solved a problem. people needed light, flexible shoes to play basketball in. and think about it, there's not much there except what you need. pretty much the only applique is the brand name.
on the other hand there are like 1 million different retreads (pun intended?) of the basic running shoe and they have all this plastic and shiny crap and stuff on them and you can't even remember what your own shoes look like when you're running. i think mine are gray but i'm not certain. i don't run that much.
I think some of you might be missing the author's point. I would say he isn't defining design as a solution without aesthetic merit, but a solution that solves a larger problem in an innovative way without relying solely on aesthetics. He mentions Saul Bass and Paul Rand precisely for this reason.
The important part of this idea is that the task of the designer is to present the client with a solution within an ambit circumscribed by factors beyond his or her control, factors that limit the ability to unrestrainedly impose personal taste. When a designer - a Paul Rand, a Saul Bass, a Neville Brody - can consistently succeed at this and still develop a recognizable personal style, well, that (by my lights, anyway) is where all the artistry resides.
IMO, though there are several factors leading to the "stylization" of design...
1. clients don't want to pay you to design. If we're using the author's definition of design, the research and work that goes into that kind of rigorous design exercise, is not in most budgets. (I think architecture differs slightly from other design disciplines in that it does have a greater inherent permanance, so more of these "design" factors are considered.)
2. when clients can afford to put that money into the budget the resulting work is only affordable to the very rich (I know, I know whole new can of worms, but I think it's true.)
If you think about it, a modern day example of the kind of research mentioned in the article would be something like the aeron chair, or similar task chair. A lot of aesthetic, ergonomic, user interface, etc. research went into designing those chairs, and they are very well done. But the average person can't afford that level of design. I think in today's world it's hard to produce something truly well designed that is affordable to most.
This problem should be easier to remedy for graphic solutions, but I think the hindrance for that field lies in the budgeting for research.
Oh, I thought it was funny that the author said this...
Until fairly recently, that is, when I started to notice a new feeling creeping into the sites I frequented. In what were nominally gathering places to discuss and celebrate online design, design seemed to be just about the last thing on anyone's mind.
and loyal archinecters proved his point post haste. :D
'definition of surfaces and arrangement of objects'
also sounds like designing
style can be, in the manner of the Wilde ilk, very much a matter of design (in the intentional sense of design - as in i have designs on stephen ward )
'The design of most clothes really hasn't changed all that much over the last century or so, but the style certainly has.'
this is a more blase comment than not, as the distinction between
style and design, as given in that comment, seems almost esoteric...whimsical.
i agree with ward's point regarding the ephemeral as design, though he doesnt make a distinction between the matter and experience of the designed (the sand castle) and the idea of the sand castle itself (the design). i assume the point was the ephemeral as a creation (more so the occurence of an idea, taking place within a lineage, such as the original barcelona pavillion that was demolished soon after it was built) stood the 'test of time'. and the best (however that is judged) becomes a sui generis canon. but simply mentioning the test of time as a proof of design vs styling is rather moronic. one's assuming design isnt led by fashion and that fashion is inherently more fickle than design (both silly prejudices and far too easy answers)
i dont think there is, in essence, any difference in the absolute. design can be very much a matter of styling, while appearing to be designed ( the countless minimalist houses that vary certain elements, certain quirks (cooky neo-minimalist - as per many youngish spanish architects) flip them vertically or horizontally, place them here and there or , another instance, virtually every Meier house after his iconic first..). this shouldnt be seen as an attack on any, but simply to establish, and do away with this myth that design precludes styling. as a designer, you know the possible parallel developments of a baby scheme, and in the generative proccess of developing the design you can recognize what you can do and where. and all those whats and wheres are to some extent a re-styling of things /combinations seen before.
and interestingly..this prejudice of design vs style is at the core of the cad (design not drafting) cynics' luddite criticisms. after its exuberant enthusiasm for complete brand newness, the shock of new space, it starts to create certain formulas (maya people will spot the maya work, max people will spot the max...). the cynics relish this opportunity to denounce this old 'newness' as a matter of styling. and dont they realize that such a generic attack is as much styled.
there is relevant and irrelevant, bland and not bland, interesting not interesting...but if i had to use that word 'style' id say i find meier's spaces more 'styled' than porphyrios', who works with 'styles'.
Sep 13, 05 4:27 pm ·
·
It is not that something ephemeral cannot also be design, it is more that "Design gets bad when it also becomes ephemeral because that mostly also means that the real underlying design is then planned obsolescence."
The main reason I see ephemeral designs as not good designs is because the ephemeral things don't just disappear, but become trash. What is most commercial packaging, for example, if not ultimately highly designed trash. Plus that pavilion thingy recently/currently(?) at PS1--it didn't take very long at all for that to get trashy.
clients ARE paying you to design--if by design you mean the solution of a set of problems via synthesis of discrete elements. what they are not necessarily paying you to do is refine that synthesis or even take it to a level that satisfies your innate desire for aesthetic beauty and/or novelty and/or essential perfection.
i don't believe that the type of design exemplified by a masterful solution of a problem using logical and aesthetic rigor is necessarily too expensive for "the masses."
iPods aren't cheap but they're not prohibitive.
the VW bug was actually within reach of "the people."
my aforementioned all-stars cost $40.
i can buy an oh chair at the container store for that same $40 and i don't need an allen wrench between placing the chair in my trunk and placing my trunk in the chair. and that is one comfortable $40 chair.
(my problem is i can't think of a well-known "inexpensive" example in architecture.)
versus the text you can't read (Architecture magazine), the clothes you can't wear (whatever those brands are--I dunno, we don't have one of them Prada stores where I grew up), that rietveld chair that would break if i put my 15-stone backside in it.
i do agree that there is a misconception that design means applied aesthetics. when an intern says "i don't design" what they mean is "i don't get to apply my aesthetics."
i fail to see the need to distinguish clearly between styling and designing.
the only motivation I can see to do so is as a way to subjugate either one or the other as inferior; and to claim in doing so that you yourself are engaged in the greater practice.
Sep 13, 05 4:51 pm ·
·
I'm more interested in the self evidence of it all. For example, I like the design of MVRDV's Dutch Pavilion, especially as presented in drawings and within the continuum of their oeuvre. I didn't so much like the Pavilion as built (at least from the images I've seen). And now there is no denying that the Dutch Pavilion is leftover trash, architecture that might be saved or that might be demolished. Overall (so far), the good reality of the design is outweighed by the bad reality of the design.
Is the Dutch Pavilion also stylized? It seems to be so in that a lot of it was also high-maintainance.
Will the design of the Dutch Pavilion ever be a true paradigm for future architecture? I'll say definitely maybe.
you can design without style and you certainly can style without design.
it's not in distinguishing between the two -- or really saying which is the greater or lesser -- but rather stating one's belief in the certain ratio to be applied to the act of creation at hand.
personally, style seems much easier and probably gets paid a whole lot better and you certainly get more press and adoration. i met the guy who invented the swiffer mop while playing cranium at a party when i lived in chicago. his only fan was my wife, who hailed him as her personal hero. now that was a problem-solving device. much more important to health, safety and welfare than a dress made of condoms or a font that makes the latin alphabet look like graffiti in armenian.
A philosophical error: Mistaking difference in kind for difference in degree. Design and style are not part of a singular continuum. Structural engineers "design" beams which are not, to my mind, very stylish. However, Mies application of steel sections as mullions on the Seagrams Building is very stylish, indeed.
Greenfield clearly placed design in line with a problem solving involving a rigorous, functional analysis, and with a reliance on first principles. Style, on the other hand, is more aesthetic and more geared to -- as Rita as repeatedly noted -- the vicissitudes of popular culture and planned obsolescence. So, perhaps, Rita, I'd like to delve into your oft-cited "reenactment." Style itself is reenactment. Not just a reenactment the way the Mohawk is an obvious reenactment, but rather the reenactment of the late-capitalist, ritualistic cycle of novelty/obsolescence.
It would be a mistake to imply that Design is somehow immune to this cycle. Just as I think that it is a mistake to gauge Design's merit by its temporality relative to other things (compared to the geological, it's all rubbish). I would, however, argue that Design's point of departure and its ends are different in kind from those of Style. Design's ends are related to use, whereas Style has as it's ultimate end consumption.
I like what The Public is saying. Broadly, styling is intended to be consumed, whilst design is intended to be used. Underlying each approach is a different set of processes and intentions, and possibly ethics.
I beleive that architects have an ethcial duty to their clients, society and the environment and that this ethical duty relates to intended or idealized usage of the architecture. But I would be deluded to think that I could accuse the majority of architects of having this approach.
there is design and there is Design, or good design, or something else. but i've been railing against the subjectification about the word "design" for a long time ... perhaps there is another word for the neutral process of design.
here's some (bad) design for you:
down the four-lane arterial from my suburban apartment complex lies a lowe's supercenter under construction.
above a very sensitive aquifer
replacing a formerly beautiful wood on the banks of a pleasant little creek
in what was once a grass farm and the fallow of a small ranch
and some architecture firm has their job sign out front.
it has certainly been tailored to its intended use as a big-box home-"improvement" store. it has a nice big parking lot to hold all the hummers and expeditions and land rovers. it has a nice big pointy thing above the entrance so you know where to enter. it has nice big clear spans of huge-arse bar joists so they can run flexduct so they can aircondition the whole MFing place to exactly 75 degrees (from 20 feet up!) so the obese won't sweat (personal thank you) and the little waify soccer moms won't have to put on their little pink sweaters that they carry around with them in july because their bodily comfort zones have been dulled by lifelong HVAC and lack of suffering to precisely 74 to 76 degrees.
and in 10 years it will be too small for its "use" and will be vacated and will become a junior college campus or a donation site for disaster-relief donations...
Bad design occurs when the default option is taken. Bad design happens where architects specify average products, manufacturer recommended installation techniques, manufacturer recommended product applications [ie. weatherboards and titanboard, brick and cavity, alulam and glass], authority recommended planning guidelines, expedient engineering, average workmanship...
It happens where the standard is adopted, the average is accepted, and the default is not questioned, And as architects, we are by and large incapable of changing this. Architecture has always been and will always be a marginalised profession.
i would also have to say that the architects of the great pyramids probably weren't marginalized.
as time passes however, i don't think the general population gives a shit what architecture is, as long as they have cable and an internet connection to live vicariously through. one of these days we will be fed our food through tubes, and we won't have to type a command or change the channel for an experience, it will be rammed straight into our cortex's... and we'll let it happen.
The big box store brings up another interesting binary design/planning. Unfortunately, I don't know for sure the intracies of the development of a particular big box--and this may seem as if I am skirting a chink in my former argument -- but I am inclined to say that big boxes are not designed as what we might call "Architecture" is designed, but rather they are part of a larger planning process aimed at harnessing the consumer habits of a population of people -- a community.
So what in this offhand definition is opposed to "Design?" I don't think it can be boiled down to simple acceptance of the average because if the higher ups at Home Despot felt that it was to there economic advantage to hire Rem Koolhaas, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The big box can't be reduced to laissez faire design process. Though, I agree that big boxes are Bad Design, which is to say that they are Designed, albeit with an ethic that several of us at least find somewhat odious.
So here we have Planning, which is not Design exactly, though Design incorporates Planning, whereas previously we had Style, which is not Design, though Design incorporates Style. I'm finding it easy to say what I think Design is not, but difficult to say what it is, without making so broad, flexible, and vague as to be meaningless.
The truth is that design and style do overlap. Zaha's perspective are more style than design, but her buildings are more design than style.
Given that style is related to consumption and obsolesence, you would expect that styled objects rely on the sampling and assimilation of existing things into new ones. I would argue that pop-art is/was a style, and James Turrel produces designs. But they are both art.
"design" vs. "styling"
The Coke bottle entry here in the news section inspired me start this thread.
The Brilliant Adam Greenfield wrote an amazing article on "design" vs. "styling", The Bathing Ape Has No Clothes. I think this article is required reading for all archinecters. And then, discuss.
It's probably true that fashion has always been more about style than design. The design of most clothes really hasn't changed all that much over the last century or so, but the style certainly has. Style is basically ephemeral.
Design gets bad when it also becomes ephemeral because that mostly also means that the real underlying design is then planned obsolescence.
It's a tough one...look at it from the perspective of human hair.
This is styled:
But this, this hair has been designed:
Get it?
No. I don't get it, and neither do you. The long hair is doing what hair is basically "designed" to do. The punk reenactor is, well, reenacting a hair style.
i agree with Rita.
liberty bell, awesome article, thanks...
I couldn't agree more, and although I am fond of certain stylist-ed efforts, including offerings from A Bathing Ape and the Designer's Republic, that article articulates the clear distinction between the design discipline and stylizing.
that reminds me, on another post somewhere you (lb) mentioned a specific line-weight system that you use...care to expand?
I disagree.
How could the punk reenactor style hair that way unless he set out to design the critical elements like color, proportion, shorter sides, and exceptional sideburn work?
Just my $.3.
seriously?
"like a feather on a woman's hat..."
AP, I love "stylised" stuff! There's nothing wrong with liking something styled vs. designed, it's just a matter of understanding the difference. And giving credit for a brilliant job performed in either realm. It's like enjoying a really well-done commercial even for a product you hate, or even if you hate TV altogether. You may not go buy the product but you can enjoy the creative energies that went into the commercial.
I just love really well-used line weights (thank you Professor Kirby Lockard at UofA), and in my CAD drawings I'm fanatical about using them properly. My plan walls are plotted very heavily, and my dashed lines or hatches are whisper-thin, with ten levels in between.
Unfortunately I'm fanatical to the point that I start to lose money on drafting time - things are "legible enough" without the devotion I give to perfecting the line weight representation.
You could argue that perfect line weights are "designed" because they are all about the legibility of the drawing. But in my mind they make the drawing more beautiful, too - so is that style? Is style inherent in the designed, but not vice versa?
Note how MM didn't ask: "How could the punk reenactor design hair that way..."
Hahaha :)
That's a tough one, Manteno. Certainly there is a structural problem to be solved in the punker's hair - "I want it to stand 5" off my head". So maybe that's design. But from a usability standpoint, it seems like a hairstyle that is difficult to maintain. I imagine the aesthetic affect was the critical issue for this user!
A very "prickly" example, indeed.
oh google...
one result returned from typing "define: styling" in my google task bar:
-bushes placed under a cock of hay.
what?
LOL, AP!
LB, I think you're even confusing the issue now. What if I said I wanted my hair to only do what it naturally does? Does that mean I'm maybe designing my hair? I don't think so.
his hair seems more like art... something to look and be molded and while highly thoughtful, it lacks any true purpose. hair in itself has purpose, but design would be giving it a new purpose.... or altering how it completes it's purpose.
like hats made of hair. oh wait. someone's already done that.
ps. thats a fab article. thank you :)
ephemeral (adj)
1.Lasting for a markedly brief time.
2. Living or lasting only for a day, as certain plants or insects do.
ephemeral (noun)
1. A markedly short-lived thing.
[The puck hair is ephemeral, especially next to the long hair.]
oopsies, apparently i dont type quick enough
I image googled puck hair and this is one of the results:
Will the real lady of design please stand up."
why wouldn't we give the aesthetic credit as a function in need of design?
maybe styling is a combination/recombination of something already in existence - an updating to keep up with trends (e.g., interior decoration) where design is the production of a thing based on a design goal. fashion is certainly design, if we think of it as a situation in which materials are brought together to turn an idea into a product, whereas styling might be the pairing of a jacket and tie with attention to the hair and shoes, etc. the shopping shows on cable are not about fashion design, but about styling.
hair styling is in this vein, being a rearrangement, possibly a coloring and editing and forming of the hair which already exists. a wig, however, would be a design problem. hair still used as raw material, but a designer is needed to assemble, to set the goal for what the wig will be, how much, etc. hair styling involving extensions might be a hybrid of these...kind of like adaptive reuse?
these nifty coke bottles include two-dimensional design (the graphic) but the bottle itself is more styling - use of an existing design's content in a new context/material.
yeah, this can get you into muddy waters real quick. fun conversation though.
I know, it confuses me too. At some level I suppose you could say that any effect of hair is only aesthetic and therefore only styled.
Design (by my personal definition) has to solve some problem. You can design a solution to something as "stylistic" as getting hair to stand 5" off a human head. But does that elevate it to the same level as, to keep it in the realm of hair, the work of whoever finally solves male pattern baldness? The two problems are apples and oranges.
Those puck gals coulda been me & my best friends in high school, BTW.
The muddy water clears up real quick for me as soon as I add 'ephemerality' to the mix.
It even helps in these muddy waters.
why would something epemeral not still be able to be design? i could design a sandcastle couldn't i? i don't think this would simply be 'styling' the sand.
ephemeral is simply use of a measure of time at a different scale, even by the definition you supplied above. something which lasted a day would be the entire life of an insect. so is something that lasts only for my lifetime also ephemeral? or something which lasts the lifetime of a tree?
Does everyone else call the little touches you add when you photograph one of your projects - the fresh flowers in the Aalto vase, the Aeron chair visible behind the desk (when the client actually sits in one from Ikea), the Powerbook on the desk (client uses a Dell), the casement window left 1/2 way open - "styling"? That's what I call it. I dsign the project, then for the sake of the photograph I style it.
I agree liberty. In college I had a professor that would complain that for our presentations we weren't designing, but styling the boards. Where as we spent very little time coming up with a design, but spent the all-nighters rendering, adding people & objects, etc.
How about this? An architect designs the space and the interior designer styles it. Crude link but it has truth in my experiences.
to be fair to 'interior designers', some are decorators, some are designers, some are interior architects > must be careful how we describe them, taking their level of immersion/abilities into account. some of what is called interior design deserves the moniker of design as much as anything we, product designers, or graphic designers might produce.
interior decoration is usually styling: collection of and shopping for a variety of products and furnishings and assembling it in one place. this discipline is definitely subject to trends and tends to be based in definition of surfaces and arrangement of objects.
to quote david brent, "a good idea...is a good idea forever...so...you know..."
look at all-stars. i don't know much about shoes -- i only wear them after all -- but 80 or 100 or 1000 years later people still like them. initially they solved a problem. people needed light, flexible shoes to play basketball in. and think about it, there's not much there except what you need. pretty much the only applique is the brand name.
on the other hand there are like 1 million different retreads (pun intended?) of the basic running shoe and they have all this plastic and shiny crap and stuff on them and you can't even remember what your own shoes look like when you're running. i think mine are gray but i'm not certain. i don't run that much.
I think some of you might be missing the author's point. I would say he isn't defining design as a solution without aesthetic merit, but a solution that solves a larger problem in an innovative way without relying solely on aesthetics. He mentions Saul Bass and Paul Rand precisely for this reason.
The important part of this idea is that the task of the designer is to present the client with a solution within an ambit circumscribed by factors beyond his or her control, factors that limit the ability to unrestrainedly impose personal taste. When a designer - a Paul Rand, a Saul Bass, a Neville Brody - can consistently succeed at this and still develop a recognizable personal style, well, that (by my lights, anyway) is where all the artistry resides.
IMO, though there are several factors leading to the "stylization" of design...
1. clients don't want to pay you to design. If we're using the author's definition of design, the research and work that goes into that kind of rigorous design exercise, is not in most budgets. (I think architecture differs slightly from other design disciplines in that it does have a greater inherent permanance, so more of these "design" factors are considered.)
2. when clients can afford to put that money into the budget the resulting work is only affordable to the very rich (I know, I know whole new can of worms, but I think it's true.)
If you think about it, a modern day example of the kind of research mentioned in the article would be something like the aeron chair, or similar task chair. A lot of aesthetic, ergonomic, user interface, etc. research went into designing those chairs, and they are very well done. But the average person can't afford that level of design. I think in today's world it's hard to produce something truly well designed that is affordable to most.
This problem should be easier to remedy for graphic solutions, but I think the hindrance for that field lies in the budgeting for research.
Oh, I thought it was funny that the author said this...
Until fairly recently, that is, when I started to notice a new feeling creeping into the sites I frequented. In what were nominally gathering places to discuss and celebrate online design, design seemed to be just about the last thing on anyone's mind.
and loyal archinecters proved his point post haste. :D
'definition of surfaces and arrangement of objects'
also sounds like designing
style can be, in the manner of the Wilde ilk, very much a matter of design (in the intentional sense of design - as in i have designs on stephen ward )
'The design of most clothes really hasn't changed all that much over the last century or so, but the style certainly has.'
this is a more blase comment than not, as the distinction between
style and design, as given in that comment, seems almost esoteric...whimsical.
i agree with ward's point regarding the ephemeral as design, though he doesnt make a distinction between the matter and experience of the designed (the sand castle) and the idea of the sand castle itself (the design). i assume the point was the ephemeral as a creation (more so the occurence of an idea, taking place within a lineage, such as the original barcelona pavillion that was demolished soon after it was built) stood the 'test of time'. and the best (however that is judged) becomes a sui generis canon. but simply mentioning the test of time as a proof of design vs styling is rather moronic. one's assuming design isnt led by fashion and that fashion is inherently more fickle than design (both silly prejudices and far too easy answers)
i dont think there is, in essence, any difference in the absolute. design can be very much a matter of styling, while appearing to be designed ( the countless minimalist houses that vary certain elements, certain quirks (cooky neo-minimalist - as per many youngish spanish architects) flip them vertically or horizontally, place them here and there or , another instance, virtually every Meier house after his iconic first..). this shouldnt be seen as an attack on any, but simply to establish, and do away with this myth that design precludes styling. as a designer, you know the possible parallel developments of a baby scheme, and in the generative proccess of developing the design you can recognize what you can do and where. and all those whats and wheres are to some extent a re-styling of things /combinations seen before.
and interestingly..this prejudice of design vs style is at the core of the cad (design not drafting) cynics' luddite criticisms. after its exuberant enthusiasm for complete brand newness, the shock of new space, it starts to create certain formulas (maya people will spot the maya work, max people will spot the max...). the cynics relish this opportunity to denounce this old 'newness' as a matter of styling. and dont they realize that such a generic attack is as much styled.
there is relevant and irrelevant, bland and not bland, interesting not interesting...but if i had to use that word 'style' id say i find meier's spaces more 'styled' than porphyrios', who works with 'styles'.
It is not that something ephemeral cannot also be design, it is more that "Design gets bad when it also becomes ephemeral because that mostly also means that the real underlying design is then planned obsolescence."
The main reason I see ephemeral designs as not good designs is because the ephemeral things don't just disappear, but become trash. What is most commercial packaging, for example, if not ultimately highly designed trash. Plus that pavilion thingy recently/currently(?) at PS1--it didn't take very long at all for that to get trashy.
if you are an architect:
clients ARE paying you to design--if by design you mean the solution of a set of problems via synthesis of discrete elements. what they are not necessarily paying you to do is refine that synthesis or even take it to a level that satisfies your innate desire for aesthetic beauty and/or novelty and/or essential perfection.
i don't believe that the type of design exemplified by a masterful solution of a problem using logical and aesthetic rigor is necessarily too expensive for "the masses."
iPods aren't cheap but they're not prohibitive.
the VW bug was actually within reach of "the people."
my aforementioned all-stars cost $40.
i can buy an oh chair at the container store for that same $40 and i don't need an allen wrench between placing the chair in my trunk and placing my trunk in the chair. and that is one comfortable $40 chair.
(my problem is i can't think of a well-known "inexpensive" example in architecture.)
versus the text you can't read (Architecture magazine), the clothes you can't wear (whatever those brands are--I dunno, we don't have one of them Prada stores where I grew up), that rietveld chair that would break if i put my 15-stone backside in it.
i do agree that there is a misconception that design means applied aesthetics. when an intern says "i don't design" what they mean is "i don't get to apply my aesthetics."
i fail to see the need to distinguish clearly between styling and designing.
the only motivation I can see to do so is as a way to subjugate either one or the other as inferior; and to claim in doing so that you yourself are engaged in the greater practice.
I'm more interested in the self evidence of it all. For example, I like the design of MVRDV's Dutch Pavilion, especially as presented in drawings and within the continuum of their oeuvre. I didn't so much like the Pavilion as built (at least from the images I've seen). And now there is no denying that the Dutch Pavilion is leftover trash, architecture that might be saved or that might be demolished. Overall (so far), the good reality of the design is outweighed by the bad reality of the design.
Is the Dutch Pavilion also stylized? It seems to be so in that a lot of it was also high-maintainance.
Will the design of the Dutch Pavilion ever be a true paradigm for future architecture? I'll say definitely maybe.
you can design without style and you certainly can style without design.
it's not in distinguishing between the two -- or really saying which is the greater or lesser -- but rather stating one's belief in the certain ratio to be applied to the act of creation at hand.
personally, style seems much easier and probably gets paid a whole lot better and you certainly get more press and adoration. i met the guy who invented the swiffer mop while playing cranium at a party when i lived in chicago. his only fan was my wife, who hailed him as her personal hero. now that was a problem-solving device. much more important to health, safety and welfare than a dress made of condoms or a font that makes the latin alphabet look like graffiti in armenian.
engineering + styling = design
Hmmm, Alana, I like that.....what else ya got?
Ah, now there's a stylized definition.
engineering - styling = what most developers like
styling - engineering = what most academics like
sorry, being a little too glib, it is a good way to look at it if you add the factor "good" to the equation:
engineering + styling = good design
A philosophical error: Mistaking difference in kind for difference in degree. Design and style are not part of a singular continuum. Structural engineers "design" beams which are not, to my mind, very stylish. However, Mies application of steel sections as mullions on the Seagrams Building is very stylish, indeed.
Greenfield clearly placed design in line with a problem solving involving a rigorous, functional analysis, and with a reliance on first principles. Style, on the other hand, is more aesthetic and more geared to -- as Rita as repeatedly noted -- the vicissitudes of popular culture and planned obsolescence. So, perhaps, Rita, I'd like to delve into your oft-cited "reenactment." Style itself is reenactment. Not just a reenactment the way the Mohawk is an obvious reenactment, but rather the reenactment of the late-capitalist, ritualistic cycle of novelty/obsolescence.
It would be a mistake to imply that Design is somehow immune to this cycle. Just as I think that it is a mistake to gauge Design's merit by its temporality relative to other things (compared to the geological, it's all rubbish). I would, however, argue that Design's point of departure and its ends are different in kind from those of Style. Design's ends are related to use, whereas Style has as it's ultimate end consumption.
I like what The Public is saying. Broadly, styling is intended to be consumed, whilst design is intended to be used. Underlying each approach is a different set of processes and intentions, and possibly ethics.
I beleive that architects have an ethcial duty to their clients, society and the environment and that this ethical duty relates to intended or idealized usage of the architecture. But I would be deluded to think that I could accuse the majority of architects of having this approach.
there is design and there is Design, or good design, or something else. but i've been railing against the subjectification about the word "design" for a long time ... perhaps there is another word for the neutral process of design.
here's some (bad) design for you:
down the four-lane arterial from my suburban apartment complex lies a lowe's supercenter under construction.
above a very sensitive aquifer
replacing a formerly beautiful wood on the banks of a pleasant little creek
in what was once a grass farm and the fallow of a small ranch
and some architecture firm has their job sign out front.
it has certainly been tailored to its intended use as a big-box home-"improvement" store. it has a nice big parking lot to hold all the hummers and expeditions and land rovers. it has a nice big pointy thing above the entrance so you know where to enter. it has nice big clear spans of huge-arse bar joists so they can run flexduct so they can aircondition the whole MFing place to exactly 75 degrees (from 20 feet up!) so the obese won't sweat (personal thank you) and the little waify soccer moms won't have to put on their little pink sweaters that they carry around with them in july because their bodily comfort zones have been dulled by lifelong HVAC and lack of suffering to precisely 74 to 76 degrees.
and in 10 years it will be too small for its "use" and will be vacated and will become a junior college campus or a donation site for disaster-relief donations...
...like the abandoned home depot up the street.
Bad design occurs when the default option is taken. Bad design happens where architects specify average products, manufacturer recommended installation techniques, manufacturer recommended product applications [ie. weatherboards and titanboard, brick and cavity, alulam and glass], authority recommended planning guidelines, expedient engineering, average workmanship...
It happens where the standard is adopted, the average is accepted, and the default is not questioned, And as architects, we are by and large incapable of changing this. Architecture has always been and will always be a marginalised profession.
Average in, average out etcetera, etcetera.
value engineering + style = what most developers like
i would also have to say that the architects of the great pyramids probably weren't marginalized.
as time passes however, i don't think the general population gives a shit what architecture is, as long as they have cable and an internet connection to live vicariously through. one of these days we will be fed our food through tubes, and we won't have to type a command or change the channel for an experience, it will be rammed straight into our cortex's... and we'll let it happen.
no, the architects of the great pyramids were killed so as not able to repeat thier accomplishment...
The big box store brings up another interesting binary design/planning. Unfortunately, I don't know for sure the intracies of the development of a particular big box--and this may seem as if I am skirting a chink in my former argument -- but I am inclined to say that big boxes are not designed as what we might call "Architecture" is designed, but rather they are part of a larger planning process aimed at harnessing the consumer habits of a population of people -- a community.
So what in this offhand definition is opposed to "Design?" I don't think it can be boiled down to simple acceptance of the average because if the higher ups at Home Despot felt that it was to there economic advantage to hire Rem Koolhaas, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The big box can't be reduced to laissez faire design process. Though, I agree that big boxes are Bad Design, which is to say that they are Designed, albeit with an ethic that several of us at least find somewhat odious.
So here we have Planning, which is not Design exactly, though Design incorporates Planning, whereas previously we had Style, which is not Design, though Design incorporates Style. I'm finding it easy to say what I think Design is not, but difficult to say what it is, without making so broad, flexible, and vague as to be meaningless.
Or so subjective as to be a mere matter of opinion. Also ...
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.
design is a means, style is an end.
Oh, nice.
The truth is that design and style do overlap. Zaha's perspective are more style than design, but her buildings are more design than style.
Given that style is related to consumption and obsolesence, you would expect that styled objects rely on the sampling and assimilation of existing things into new ones. I would argue that pop-art is/was a style, and James Turrel produces designs. But they are both art.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.