Friends,
While I understand how Eduardo’s comments resonate, there are many schools of philosophy, and I wonder whether any of these offers the *only* way to intellectually tackle beauty. Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy addresses a progress from the aesthetic to the ethical to the religious — taken in existential terms rather than Kierkegaard’s existential religious terms, the importance of understanding what we are doing by some recourse to evidence is what David speaks of when he speaks of the fact that many people *have* to use what we design.
Artists can do what they wish to do. Each artist has an audience of one. Every artist hopes to expand that audience to include many. But for most artists, only one stakeholder really counts: the artist who decides what is beautiful. That’s not really true, of course. As Duchamp notes, the viewer completes the work of art. But once the work is in the world, it’s an open debate. Do you really care whether Duchamps’ bicycle wheel works? The proper height of the R. Mutt urinal is irrelevant to most of us.
In contrast, the legibility of a medical label or use instructions are always a matter of health, and sometimes a matter of life and death. It is possible to measure these in many ways, not just one way. Whenever we speak of an “only way”, we risk some form of Taylorism in which “one best way” becomes a crushing and inappropriate orthodoxy. The problem of Taylor’s orthodox efficiency measures was that Taylor’s system was both good and bad — the problem was that the Taylorite priesthood served the captains of industry without respect to the live of those workers condemned to labor under a Taylorist regime.
It seems to me that a great many philosophical arguments for beauty result in bad design, at least as far as those who use the “beautiful” designed artefacts. Some years ago, I recall a designer from an award-winning design firm criticise the work of a particularly skilled designer, asking me whether I really “liked” all of his work or thought it as beautiful and appealing as it could be.
My answer was that I did not. While I loved many of his projects, I did not “like” others at all. The reason I respected him above most other designers was that every project did what it should have done for the client, for the client’s customers, and for the end users. Whether I “liked” it or found it beautiful was far less relevant than the quality of the work for those who *had to use it*.
As some of you know, I have been an artist in another life — and sometimes I still am. I can tell you as an artist that I value philosophical inquiry into beauty.
I am also a human being who is — like so many of us — required to use products and services in daily life that others design. I can tell you as someone who *has to use* those products and services that I prefer David Sless’s approach to the approach that most philosophers take. David designs things for human beings. This is not the case for most philosophers.
One of the reasons that Kierkegaard, Buber, and Rawls are more useful to design than Hegel or Berkeley is that human beings come first, as it should be in design. All the arguments of philosophy are interesting when we are thinking about philosophy, at least historically. When we are thinking about design, we ought first to consider whom we serve, and why.
In this respect, beauty has many meanings, and there are several ways to get at them.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
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David Sless wrote in response to Eduardo Corte-Real
—snip—
> On 6 Jan 2016, at 9:32 PM, Eduardo corte-real <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> The only way you can intellectually tackle beauty is philosophically.
Eduardo and all,
Of necessity, in my field of information design, I take a different intellectual position. Beauty’s importance is always contextualised and dealt with in relation to the people who end up having to use our designs.
I say *having to use our designs* because in many of the projects we have undertaken—medicine information, forms, bills, notices, letters, web sites—people do not have a choice. They have to use these designs to achieve certain outcomes.
Having said that, we do apply a set of criteria that collectively contribute to some notions of beauty, and are to a greater or lesser degree ‘measurable’. We first published these for the benefit of our Members back in the 1990s.
—snip—
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