Well, people can be dippy about all things digital and still read books, they can go to the opera and watch a cricket match and apply for Led Zeppelin tickets without splitting themselves asunder. Very little is as mutually exclusive as we seem to find it convenient to imagine. ... So, believe me, a love of gizmos doesn’t make me averse to paper, leather and wood, old-fashioned Christmases, Preston Sturges films and country walks.... and between design and engineering.
What do I think is the point of a digital device? Is it all about function? Or am I a “style over substance” kind of a guy? Well, that last question will get my hackles up every time. As if style and substance are at war! As if a device can function if it has no style. As if a device can be called stylish that does not function superbly.There is, I think, a growing consciousness of this last point. The “utility” and “efficiency” of a technological solution are often touted as if these were virtues unto themselves, and not a means to a greater end. The engineer who cannot appreciate aesthetics is like a miser who dies with millions but without having ever known a single earthly decadence.
There are some who would justify design by tying it to the bottom line. While it is true that beauty can grease the wheels of functionality, and that pretty things sell, I think this approach has it backward. Aesthetics is the end; functionality is the means. There is no objective reason why we should bother to go on living at all—we do so out of sheer preference, out of our aesthetic appreciation for living over dying.
Utility cannot be divorced from fancy. As we have struggled for decades now with poorly designed, nearly unusable, “utilitarian” computer technology, we have gradually come around to acknowledging the importance of taking pleasure in design.
1 comment:
I believe your use of the word "design" is too exclusive. The ability to develop a functional, brand new process is also called design engineering, and it is the other half of your dichotomy of technology.
Having done some of it, it generally requires as much creativity and appreciation of aesthetic, simple solutions as graphic and marketing design. The general terms that arrive from the engineering jargon are "FFF" (form follows function) and "KISS" (keep is short and simple).
To agree with your statements, if a solution or product is too complicated it rarely achieves an economy worthy of production, and so functionality plays a large role in the process of generating a streamlined, aesthetic final product. And despite aesthetic sentiments and appeals to art, a product, especially a new technology, rarely survives the harsh realities of the market economy if functionality is lacking.
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