“Stretched type, day-glo colours and a flagrant disregard for the rules: are we witnessing a knee-jerk reaction to the slick sameness of so much design or a genuine cultural shift?” Creative Review | Related: Jul 28, 07 | Jun 18, 07
Personally, i think that i prefer the "ugly"
Not so much for it's own sake....
I like the fact that designers (and i think it can be seen in fields ranging from architecture to magazine design)
are pushing contemporary boundaries of what is considered mainstream "beautiful"
Why not engage? Especially if there has been a cultural shift as explained in the quote below..
Reflect reality not deified concepts of "design"
It is almost like an Alsop or fromt hsi recent post
"This, it would seem, is the crux of the matter. If all three of these projects, and other contemporary works in the same vein, are merely an attempt to zig while the world zags, to be different for difference’s sake, then they need not detain us for long. If, however, they are the honest result of form following function and thereby represent the visual expression of a genuine cultural shift, then that becomes something altogether more interesting.
Take colour, for instance. Both the Olympics logo and Super Super propose a new relationship between colour and quality. That bright no longer necessarily equals trashy. That a younger generation is inverting the chromatic scale as it relates to notions of quality and class. Super Super claims to address the impact of changing patterns of media consumption on design. This, it says, is what happens when your “readers” are not readers at all but mere “scanners” of content who are as likely to start at page 46 as page one. And all three claim to be fired by a desire to involve their audiences rather than simply presenting themselves to them. Inevitably this would seem to require a move away from the slick and the forbidding, toward, as Slocombe describes it, something more “human”."
I enjoyed this quote from the Steve Heller article link:
But is it possible that the surface might blind one to the inner beauty (i.e. intelligence) of this work? Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Conduct of Life (1860) wrote: “The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.” Given Emerson’s measure, it could be argued that design is only ugly when devoid of aesthetic or conceptual forethought – for example, generic restaurant menus, store signs and packages.
Evidence of another magazine reacting is Icon. Issue 51 has the favourite whipping boy of kitsch culture - the garden gnome - offering us the highway salute.
Shift or no, I don't know that I would move beyond magazine sub+culture when prognosticating. There are other currents far more influential than the dwindling, hypersegmented audience for magazines where trends are in like a lion, out like a lamb.
What I found interesting were statements such as:
“Things feel a lot more human if they are a fraction out,” and "seeking to inject some quirky humanity into a slickly homogenised magazine market."
We’re talking about a mercantile matrix here, where culture coexists with commodity and coercion, as well as community and consignment. Am I missing any? To suggest that ugliness is a vector for a humanist message sure sounds noble, but if the message results from an ethical framework that produces statements like this:
"Now even more superficial/Over 100 pages of hype & lies"
Well, that’s just bs. Better to just leave them kids alone if you want them to feel human.
There will invariably be those who turn design into a pseudo-science for hungry merchants, and when faced with the prospect of increasingly coercive contexts to suit our global experience economy the lowly "strip mall" may actually become a haven for those seeking unmediated spaces.
Under those circumstances don't you think you could invert that entire quote lb?
"But is it possible that the surface might blind one to the inner [ugliness] (i.e. [overwrought]) of this work? Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Conduct of Life (1860) wrote: “The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being [manipulative].” Given Emerson’s measure, it could be argued that design is only ugly when devoid of [ugliness] or conceptual [restraint] – for example, [this space for rent by Mike Davis or Bruce Sterling]."
Sep 10, 07 7:27 pm ·
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Personally, i think that i prefer the "ugly"
Not so much for it's own sake....
I like the fact that designers (and i think it can be seen in fields ranging from architecture to magazine design)
are pushing contemporary boundaries of what is considered mainstream "beautiful"
Why not engage? Especially if there has been a cultural shift as explained in the quote below..
Reflect reality not deified concepts of "design"
It is almost like an Alsop or fromt hsi recent post
"This, it would seem, is the crux of the matter. If all three of these projects, and other contemporary works in the same vein, are merely an attempt to zig while the world zags, to be different for difference’s sake, then they need not detain us for long. If, however, they are the honest result of form following function and thereby represent the visual expression of a genuine cultural shift, then that becomes something altogether more interesting.
Take colour, for instance. Both the Olympics logo and Super Super propose a new relationship between colour and quality. That bright no longer necessarily equals trashy. That a younger generation is inverting the chromatic scale as it relates to notions of quality and class. Super Super claims to address the impact of changing patterns of media consumption on design. This, it says, is what happens when your “readers” are not readers at all but mere “scanners” of content who are as likely to start at page 46 as page one. And all three claim to be fired by a desire to involve their audiences rather than simply presenting themselves to them. Inevitably this would seem to require a move away from the slick and the forbidding, toward, as Slocombe describes it, something more “human”."
I enjoyed this quote from the Steve Heller article link:
But is it possible that the surface might blind one to the inner beauty (i.e. intelligence) of this work? Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Conduct of Life (1860) wrote: “The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.” Given Emerson’s measure, it could be argued that design is only ugly when devoid of aesthetic or conceptual forethought – for example, generic restaurant menus, store signs and packages.
Strip mall, anyone?
Evidence of another magazine reacting is Icon. Issue 51 has the favourite whipping boy of kitsch culture - the garden gnome - offering us the highway salute.
Shift or no, I don't know that I would move beyond magazine sub+culture when prognosticating. There are other currents far more influential than the dwindling, hypersegmented audience for magazines where trends are in like a lion, out like a lamb.
What I found interesting were statements such as:
“Things feel a lot more human if they are a fraction out,” and "seeking to inject some quirky humanity into a slickly homogenised magazine market."
We’re talking about a mercantile matrix here, where culture coexists with commodity and coercion, as well as community and consignment. Am I missing any? To suggest that ugliness is a vector for a humanist message sure sounds noble, but if the message results from an ethical framework that produces statements like this:
"Now even more superficial/Over 100 pages of hype & lies"
Well, that’s just bs. Better to just leave them kids alone if you want them to feel human.
There will invariably be those who turn design into a pseudo-science for hungry merchants, and when faced with the prospect of increasingly coercive contexts to suit our global experience economy the lowly "strip mall" may actually become a haven for those seeking unmediated spaces.
Under those circumstances don't you think you could invert that entire quote lb?
"But is it possible that the surface might blind one to the inner [ugliness] (i.e. [overwrought]) of this work? Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Conduct of Life (1860) wrote: “The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being [manipulative].” Given Emerson’s measure, it could be argued that design is only ugly when devoid of [ugliness] or conceptual [restraint] – for example, [this space for rent by Mike Davis or Bruce Sterling]."
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