[Sigia-l] Just for you women out there

[Christopher Fahey]

> > I don't think polarizing design between "what design 
> > elites think is good" and "everything else" is helpful.
Listera sez:
> Why not? 

Because even among design elites there is broad disagreement about what is
good and bad design. It's not even clear that there is even a real design
elite. And, as I've said, it disregards issues of class and culture. 

Decoration and ornament, for example, were for most of the 20th century
considered by many design elites to be "bad design". 20th century Modernism,
and much of today's hip design, is marked by this intense desire to avoid
decoration and to focus on general forms. Many designers today, especially
in the interactive design space, still subscribe to this quaint idea of the
superiority of allegedly minimalist design, unaware of the fact that the
originator of the theory, Adolf Loos, specifically said that ornament is
"degenerate" specifically because it is the kind of design practice
characteristic of idle women and non-European cultures. Oh, and criminals.
This weird school of thought is fundamental to much of what many of today's
elite designers consider to be "good design". This school of thought
underlies my own distate for Victorian-era furniture and, I daresay, your
own distaste for diamond-studded pink laptops.

It's impossible to responsibly discuss good and bad design without expanding
the conversation into other topics including usefulness, usability, class
(and everything that entails), culture, history, business and economics,
symbolism, political intent, and more. I suggest skipping the easy shorthand
and just cutting to the underlying topic: Is the Hello Kitty laptop bad
design because it's hard to use, because it's feminine, because it is pink,
because it is foreign? Or is it something else? It's not enough to call it
bad, you have to explain why it is bad. 

-Cf

Christopher Fahey
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