“Embracing the word “ugly”—so readily identified with everything popular design claims to have been a reaction against—seems a logical choice if we are to create a vision for the practice of design freed from the restrictions and prejudices of its past.”
Tad Toulis makes an argument for Ugly, suggesting that our pre-conceived ideas about beauty and aesthetics may be a dogma that is actually holding us back. Great read from Core 77.
posted by John Dilworth
on Thursday, Oct 30, 2008
tagged with
ugly design
2 comments
My son has a friend that says, “Don’t think of yourself as an ugly person. Think of yourself as a beautiful monkey!”
comment by Ted Boren about an hour later
Favorite quote from the article (which is unfortunately really dense, but good):
“The elevation of hack culture from a subversive activity to a pedestrian preoccupation also casts a light on changing notions of propriety. Websites such as LifeHacker, ThinkGeek and Inventables routinely categorize and publish burgeoning catalogs of top hacks. Reviewing these sites frequently, one can catch a glimpse of a new species of product design emerging. Alice Wang’s Tyrant alarm which drunk dials your friends if you refuse to turn it off, or ThinkGeek’s SnuZnLuz, which threatens to donate your money to the GOP offer up something truly new in consumer electronics: product with a soul layered atop its physical design and functional OS.”
comment by Ted Boren 2 hours later
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