On Design Aesthetics

What is the beauty of design?
Design is an independent art discipline. Its research content and service objects are different from traditional art categories. Therefore, design aesthetics is also different from traditional painting and decoration. Its research content naturally cannot completely reflect the traditional aesthetics. theory.
As we all know, design is a very comprehensive subject. It involves many factors such as society, culture, economy, market, science and technology. Its aesthetic standards also change with the changes of many factors.
Let's first take a look at the concept of design:
Design is innovation. If there is no invention, the design loses its value; if it lacks creativity, the product will lose its life. - Liu Dongli (Hong Kong)
Design is the pursuit of new possibilities. - Musashino (Japan)
Design is Economic Benefit - Linyan Lin (Deputy Director, Department of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
Industrial design is an imaginative development activity that satisfies human material needs and psychological desires. Design is not an individual performance. The designer's task is not to maintain the status quo but to try to change it. - Arthur Prosps (former chairman of ICSID)
Design is the process of conveying some kind of planning, planning, conception and problem solving through visual language.
It can be seen that the core of design is a kind of creative behavior, a process of solving problems, and one of the main characteristics of the sibling art category is originality, so we can think so:
The first principle of the beauty of design is "new".
The design requirements are new, different, different, and different. Otherwise, the design will not be called design. And this "new" has different levels. It can be either improved or creative. But in any case, only a new design will shine in distinctive waves in the big waves and take the first step towards success.
The second essence of the beauty of design is "reasonableness."
A design is called "design" because it solves the problem. Design cannot exist independently of society and market, and compliance with the law of value is the direct cause of design existence. If the designer can not bring more surplus value to the company, I believe there will be no design for this industry in the world.
The third important point in the beauty of design is "human nature."
In the final analysis, design is designed for people. Serving people's needs in life is the ultimate goal of design. Naturally, the beauty of design also follows the basic human aesthetic interests. Symmetry, rhythm, balance, rhythm, form, color, texture, craftsmanship... All the aesthetic laws that we can think of seem to be able to find corresponding applications in design.
These three laws make designers different from pure artists and pure engineers. Their destiny is to dance with cymbals.
Relying on the beauty of design, I believe that designing this unique aesthetic rule is not groundless. It has objective basis and needs behind it. It can be said that the support of the beauty of design is the law of the market, and it is the law of brutal market competition and the survival of the fittest that creates this aesthetic interest.
In the era of industrial development, traditional craftsmanship aesthetics were washed away in the rumbling of the machine overnight. The industrial age requires large-volume, procedural, new products that meet cost-profit laws.
For a time, functionalism seems to be a constant aesthetic rule. Its concise and scientific design principles have swept the entire civilized land and created a historical miracle of the pre-industrial era. The market is full of functionalist products. The beauty of design in this period is dominated by modernist style.
why?
Market rules.
Under the conditions of production at that time, functionalism could meet the requirements of mass production of machines to the utmost, and at the same time swiftly took care of the basic aesthetic principles, and the masses were also greatly satisfied with the usability of bulk products. Are you happy?

When style becomes popular, it will inevitably create a taste for aesthetics and become self-contained. The most influential slogan of functionalism is "form follows Function." "Thinking the beauty and value of an item or building depends on its adaptability to its purpose."
This principle derives from its own aesthetic system—minimalism, minimalism, and so on. It has produced many excellent designs that are perfectly unified in their functional forms, and has brought everyday items into industrial mass production...
However, the market is like the stock market's ups and downs.
With more and more machines and more and more productive capacities, the majority of people are no longer satisfied with the simple requirements of "use."
It is undeniable that functionalism has progressive significance, considerable vitality, and reasonable existence value. However, it is by no means the golden rule. Once productivity has increased further and consumers have finally been able to purchase luxury goods, people who are tired of the simple coordination of functional language and pure rhythm are beginning to favor new shape morphemes. The icy vocabulary of modernist irrigation has begun to suffer from the market. Coldly.
Post-modernism, the opponent of modernism began to conspire in the market to change.
In 1966, American architect Robert Venturi published the book "The Complexity and Contradiction of Architecture." The slogans of functionalism, "less is more," tit-for-tat diametrically suggested that "less is boring." To promote a messy, complex, vague, eclectic symbolism and historicism. Thus opened the prelude to postmodernism design.
It can be said that this is a pure rebellion - a visual subversion and aggression.
Modernism is introverted, postmodernism is publicity, it tears the enthusiasm and passion of the heart, and the market tolerates its exaggeration. This era has become colorful and bizarre.
But careful analysis of the post-modernist style (in fact, postmodernism is not style, its style is despising style and system) is nothing less than also satisfied the market's Darwinism. Postmodernism, as an over-revolutionary revolution, is in full compliance with the laws of the market.

We know that the dominance of the market - consumers are ultimately emotional men and women, they need emotional venting, need an ideal sustenance, need an atmosphere of emotional atmosphere. The purely functional products of modernism make life indifferent. If it is not because of its ease of use, popularity, and cheapness, people will not move machine-like products back home.
In the moment when productivity and price allow people to choose, the enthusiasm of post-modernism begins to slog through the streets. Commercial design stimulates the buying impulse of consumers with novelty and tricks. Its core is the “planned abolition system”. Functionality is no longer a sin, visual satisfaction and psychological enrichment can be defined as functional requirements above touch and feel.
It can be seen that it is market rules that have created the ups and downs of the design style.
The story of modernism and postmodernism is only a short-lived history.
Market rules sometimes maintain strict scientific design principles, sometimes conniving at the designer's simple personal performance. The progress of the times and some historical accidental factors have created the unpredictability and interest of design style, full of challenges and confusion.
The style is changing rapidly, and the only thing that is old is the market and its laws.
What should we do?
Awakened from the long dream of history, we regret to find that we are still designing one of the dribbles in the long river.
We are not geniuses. We can't wave our sleeves and the world should. Most of us are incapable of creating an epoch-making design revolution. Throughout the so-called design revolution, it is a farce. In the future, we will shoulder the heavy burden of the rise of the motherland's industry and its entry into the international market. Small people will need to feed their families and at least one person to feed the whole family and not go hungry. Therefore, down-to-earth and face-to-face life are the top priorities we should do.
Grasping the pulse of the market and keeping up with the trend of the times is the most basic requirement for an ordinary designer. Our goal is for the time being - design a product with 60 points.
This passing score is actually difficult to achieve. At present, few large companies in China can now achieve 60 points in the international market.
This 60 points requires the designer to have a keen insight and abstract ability, and these ability * theories are difficult to train. Only by doing more, doing more, and more failures in the real market will we be able to hone it out.
Several graduating classmates joked -- and wait for me to work on this third company, and my abilities will rise again.
Announce their experience in exchange for capitalists’ tears:
Summarize the current popular modeling elements can pay more attention to detail and familiar with the process, make sure that no one link will not go wrong knowing that their design will be out of date next year believe their ability, at least verbally can not be afraid ... ...
About Forms and Functions <br> Questions about Forms and Functions I have also thought about many times, designing as an art of creation, both of which must be combined in one. The formal design with no function is a burdensome decoration, and the functional design with no formality is a shameless thing.
However, I thought that the two did not have high scores.
Why do you want to split the time? Even if there is a difference between the primary and the secondary, what can we do with success?
If the form and function are nothing more than a matter of method and problem, where to start, we can boldly and confidently choose.
Forms do not have to fully follow the function, and the function does not have to completely let it be in form. In the design of different products, the concrete treatment of specific issues is the style of seeking truth from facts.
So what should I do?
I thought that it was precisely what I did not know how to really approach the facts.
We do not need to know which of the two is important, but the importance of forcibly defining one aspect will only lead to a culture of study, which is detrimental to design progress and learning.
In the actual design case, we only need to know that both are important enough. Just as people have thousands of faces, they are different; products also have different attributes and focuses.
Machinery, tools, etc. can be regarded as functional products, the form can be followed by retreat;
Home appliances, furniture, etc., which count as half of the functions and forms, are important in both aspects;
Jewelry, display, etc. belong to the category of priority, the function is very simple, without much consideration.
......
Among these, there are many categories, some of which are closely related to their functions and forms, such as industrial machinery; some products function in the kernel, and forms can be relatively free, such as IT products... In this way, the form and function The struggle is even more tedious and unnecessary. In the end, it is necessary to talk about things and work step by step.
After all, design is about inspiration. When irreconcilable contradictions occur between form and function, the trade-offs can be based on intuitive assumptions and then carefully verified. All are based on the principle of satisfaction and moderation.
This is the "satisfaction principle" that I like more.
All in all <br> I don't think the design style has the difference between progress and backwardness. In the long history, functionalism and others are only a branch - now our streamlined style may not be more convincing than the secretive curve of Sanxingdui.
Looking at the design of Italy 50 years ago, we get the same dirt as we do now, but we have to admire it – just as we admire the four-eyed sheep and the terracotta warriors. It was a testimony of the era and the essence of the time. We believe that after 10 years, our Apple computers will be more dross than they are.
In the embrace of the market, designs only feel turbulent and refreshed, and what our designers have to do is to be grateful to them and move toward them. The timeliness of design is the reason for our existence.
Science can continue to accumulate and progress, and design only recognizes genius. If I had the good fortune to learn about the Pyramid or the creator of the Sanxingdui, I would pay him more than ten times his tears.