Knock-Offs, Rip-Offs, and Just Plain UGLY!

[kiramdear]

Paul, thanks for an interesting read.

[whojamfan]

So, you're like saying then, that like things can suck for other reasons than just like sucking?

Thanks for sharing those personal insights.

[jingle_jangle]

So, you're like saying then, that like things can suck for other reasons than just like sucking?

Yeah. It's real "Heart of Darkness" stuff...

[johnallg]

I guess my only point of contention would be not needing a design professional to tell me the "taste value" of something and the words why. I either like it or I don't. I also vote with my dollars.

[wayang]

That leaves out personal taste and aesthetic considerations. And while it's true that matters of taste (or, conversely, tastlessness) are individual concerns and opinions, we still have three positions to reconcile--educated taste (which some people may consider pretentious, precious, or "snobbish", out of reaction to the often pretentious snobs that rule on this!), taste by consensus (where many people agree that something appeals to them, even though they may not be able to clearly verbalize the appeal), and the perceptions and preferences of those unaware that issues of taste exist, or those intimidated by the concept who would reject it out of hand for arbitrary and irrelevant reasons.

Uh oh, John...you may have just placed yourself in Paul's 'Third Category'....

I'm just kiddin' around as usual...but while we may not need to be told why something is of value by a 'design professional', we might just benefit from it...I think one should be able to say definitively why one likes or dislikes something.

Personally, I've always avoided 'taste by concensus', which explains the lack of Britney Spears and Jonas Bros. tunes on my iPod...in fact, it explains my lack of an iPod, period. There's no doubt that one's taste can change over time, especially as one becomes more educated...I still get a kick out of reminding my 18-year-old Balinese metal-drumming friend that I knew him 'way back in the days when he loved Barney the Dinosaur...

[kiramdear]

...but while we may not need to be told why something is of value by a 'design professional', we might just benefit from it...I think one should be able to say definitively why one likes or dislikes something.

True, Dane, but the risk is in putting the cart before the horse. When I was advising graduate students in Fine Art long ago, they would fall between two positions when it came time to convince the panel: those who could create graduate-level work but were inarticulate about describing it, and those who could go on for hours about taste but whose work couldn't walk the walk. In the long run, the best artists were those from the first category or somewhere in the middle - the mud poets, whereas the strategist-contractor type graduates usually drifted into something else more profitable in time. Anyway, I believe the trick is to first be about what you are, and then to be just articulate enough to convince people of what they already can see.

[wayang]

Fair enough, Kira...but nothing's sillier than sitting in a cart with no horse at all...

I don't feel one has to be terribly articulate, per se, about their likes and dislikes...I really don't care for the 'jus' becuz' stance, is all...

If the discussion can't run a little deeper than that, I vote with my shoes...

[kiramdear]

Fair enough, Kira...but nothing's sillier than sitting in a cart with no horse at all...

I don't feel one has to be terribly articulate, per se, about their likes and dislikes...I really don't care for the 'jus' becuz' stance, is all...

If the discussion can't run a little deeper than that, I vote with my shoes...

I agree on all points. We get nowhere at all with being anti-intellectual about it.

[jingle_jangle]

As I said, the friction, debates, and fun comes in the spaces between. Non-"design professionals" often profess to have little use for design, but everytime a person gets into a car or airplane, buys any sort of manufactured item, from a hedge clipper to a stereo amplifier to the laptop computer I'm writing this on, you are paying for the services of one. This type of design is ubiquitous, and as a commodity, in a golden age.

Most folks get product design mixed with product engineering, but the two (though they exist hand-in-glove) couldn't be further apart in terms of discipline and process.

Engineering is, almost by definition, quantitative and is mostly left-brained. Product design is right-brained and more intuitive. I'm not selling design services, but merely expressing the benefit of having available a design vocabulary for purposes of evaluation of factors that are difficult for a layman to verbalize. Taste arbitration is a sticky wicket. There are ideals of beauty that are in the conjunction of popular and professional consensus. These are often termed "design classics". Popular "taste" in general, seems to range from lowest common denominator preference, to some pretty sophisticated stuff, but it's rare for an untrained eye to achieve sophistication. When it happens, it's a joy.(Ref: Fender Stratocaster, for example!) And, despite what many think, design and fashion are not too closely tied, one being a discipline and the other a societal phenomenon.

No question that designers get themselves mixed up in some pretty bland,ill-considered, and awful stuff, too. How else to explain an AMC Gremlin X?

Anti-intellectuality is a frame of mind that has taken a firm hold on American culture over roughly the last thirty years. What used to be a respect for vision and education, and even science, has morphed into deep suspicion of intangibles and a sort of proud ignorance that rejects anything the requires concentration, brain power and a reasonable attention span to grasp.

[wayang]

People always have reasons for why they like something...they sometimes just fail to consider or try to put into words what those reasons might be. To quote The Fugs:

"Why d'ya like b**bsalot?"

"Because I like b**bsalot!"

Oh...okay, then...

[kiramdear]

I dunno why these two guys come to mind now, but here's a little salt in the stew ...

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

I think design or esthetic harmony is the result of a successful marriage of the right and left brain functions that Paul describes from the process itself.

[antipodean]

Wow, I popped open this thread expecting to have a chuckle over the latest travesty of bad taste and found a great discourse and subsequent intelligent debate about design, marketing and subjective aesthetic perception. I feel like I just popped into some weird alternative universe...



....where I kind of feel at home!

[kiramdear]

Anti-intellectuality is a frame of mind that has taken a firm hold on American culture over roughly the last thirty years. What used to be a respect for vision and education, and even science, has morphed into deep suspicion of intangibles and a sort of proud ignorance that rejects anything the requires concentration, brain power and a reasonable attention span to grasp.

I would guess that shift was helped along by the idea that Madison Avenue has taken over the reins of mass education. Add to that the stress and complexity of modern life and most people can't focus on anything that needs more than thirty minutes to digest It's daunting to try gain any ground for one's soul in this world, but made harder when they try to teach you to reject one imprtant thing that can help you - one's sense of reason.

[whojamfan]

So, you're like saying then, that like things can suck for other reasons than just like sucking?

Yeah. It's real "Heart of Darkness" stuff...

Never get off the boat!

Dane, first "Putney Swope", and now "The Fugs"? You're killing me, I haven't seen or heard either in over 20 years. Wow "Toes wiggling happily in my boots....."

[jingle_jangle]

Anti-intellectuality is a frame of mind that has taken a firm hold on American culture over roughly the last thirty years. What used to be a respect for vision and education, and even science, has morphed into deep suspicion of intangibles and a sort of proud ignorance that rejects anything the requires concentration, brain power and a reasonable attention span to grasp.

I would guess that shift was helped along by the idea that Madison Avenue has taken over the reins of mass education. Add to that the stress and complexity of modern life and most people can't focus on anything that needs more than thirty minutes to digest It's daunting to try gain any ground for one's soul in this world, but made harder when they try to teach you to reject one imprtant thing that can help you - one's sense of reason.

I think this is off the mark, Kira. As much as I find myself disliking MadAve for inventing demand and desire for stuff of dubious intrinsic value, the shift toward anti-intellectual attitudes (initiated by a top-down mistrust and cynicism toward intellectuals and/or academics) seems to have begun in deadly earnest during Nixon's tenure in the White House; all the more ironic because he depended upon his menagerie of advisers who came from this gene pool, none more than HAK Kissinger.

Now we're touching on politics, so time to reel myself in. But, consider the respect showed to presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy (educated men, all) and the brief fling with Harry Truman, an anti-intellectual common man who the electorate couldn't wait to get rid of. Since Kennedy, it's been a downhill run and gaining momentum.