9 ms·

That's not "brutalism" as defined by industrial designers and architects ... yet another idiotic buzzword since "flat design" or "zero ui" don't sell anymore, y

That's not "brutalism" as defined by industrial designers and architects ... yet another idiotic buzzword since "flat design" or "zero ui" don't sell anymore, yet another misused expression by web designers .... Seriously, who is making up that crap ?

frik 11y ago
I agree. The next guy will call it "bauhaus".
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  The web won't be over until it becomes ironically post-modern.
adrusi 11y ago
Their definition is copied straight out of the wikipedia article on brutalism. It's not a recent edit, it's been that way for at least a year.
pnathan 11y ago
That's not brutalism: that's 1990s HTML-centric web design. One emulates a freaking man page.
- marklgr 11y ago
  > One emulates a freaking man page. It's far from the worst.
- Johnny_Brahms 11y ago
  What was wrong with the man page design? I loved it. Apart from the monospaced font, it is clean and easy to follow.
  - kidmenot 11y ago
    And, and... are we not going to talk about how he chose the words so carefully that there is not a single hyphenated one, making every line the same length? Am I missing some obvious shortcut to it or is this guy actually good?
    - skyjade 11y ago
      This is a css property text-alignment: justify
    - saulrh 11y ago
      If you're talking about the one way up near the top of the page, the justification on that one is just impressively subtle. Try to follow columns of characters up and down the page.
    - Johnny_Brahms 11y ago
      The letters are not aligned, so no: he did not spend any time choosing the words. Just regular css trickery, no real man page kung-fu.
  - pnathan 11y ago
    Nothing. I like man pages. But it's not some architectural movement.
    - Johnny_Brahms 11y ago
      The guy behind the man page page didn't make that claim.
duiker101 11y ago
People that want to stand out?
charlesism 11y ago
Next year and we'll be back to "skeuomorphism" again anyways.
- rch 11y ago
  NO. Please just no.
drb311 11y ago
Here I am in Birmingham, England. A city determined to blow up our wonderful brutalist buildings and replace it with ornamented crap. Brutalism means letting a functional concrete building look concrete and functional -- revealing its function and materials in the design. A brutalist web site should LOOK like a web site, and build its appearance around its function, not some fancy science-fi fantasy. Here's some text. Here's an image. Here's a heading. Here's a link. They all do different things, they are all in different places. By that reckoning a few of the examples are brutalist. Hacker News, craigslist, Daniel Eatock. They are not minimalist, because they do not hide their functional complexity. They reveal the functional complexity in their design. These are popular, powerful, ugly sites and I'd love to see more of them.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- anthk 11y ago
  Brutalist 'hood = junkie area.
dang 11y ago
This is a very bad comment for Hacker News. The maker of that website isn't a buzzword bullshitter. He's someone who became curious about a certain aspect of the web and made a site to express it. It's insightful and well-done, and you can agree or disagree with his view without being a jerk. A bullshitter wouldn't have patiently emailed the people managing all these websites to ask about the philosophy behind their design. In my interaction with him he was exquisitely well-mannered. You could learn from that. More generally, please don't call names in HN arguments. You've been doing this quite a bit, unfortunately. The site guidelines ask you not to, so please (re-)read them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. What we're going for instead is informative conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. If you know more about the historical meaning of brutalism than the rest of us, the thing to do is teach us about it. Heaping condemnation on others' work teaches us nothing—besides which, your comment seems based on the false assumption that terms have no right to change meaning when they migrate from one context to another. So please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. You needn't look any further for an example than drb311's splendid reply to you.

frik 11y ago

I agree. The next guy will call it "bauhaus".

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
The web won't be over until it becomes ironically post-modern.

adrusi 11y ago

Their definition is copied straight out of the wikipedia article on brutalism. It's not a recent edit, it's been that way for at least a year.

pnathan 11y ago

That's not brutalism: that's 1990s HTML-centric web design. One emulates a freaking man page.

marklgr 11y ago
> One emulates a freaking man page. It's far from the worst.
Johnny_Brahms 11y ago
What was wrong with the man page design? I loved it. Apart from the monospaced font, it is clean and easy to follow.
- kidmenot 11y ago
  And, and... are we not going to talk about how he chose the words so carefully that there is not a single hyphenated one, making every line the same length? Am I missing some obvious shortcut to it or is this guy actually good?
  - skyjade 11y ago
    This is a css property text-alignment: justify
  - saulrh 11y ago
    If you're talking about the one way up near the top of the page, the justification on that one is just impressively subtle. Try to follow columns of characters up and down the page.
  - Johnny_Brahms 11y ago
    The letters are not aligned, so no: he did not spend any time choosing the words. Just regular css trickery, no real man page kung-fu.
- pnathan 11y ago
  Nothing. I like man pages. But it's not some architectural movement.
  - Johnny_Brahms 11y ago
    The guy behind the man page page didn't make that claim.

duiker101 11y ago

People that want to stand out?

charlesism 11y ago

Next year and we'll be back to "skeuomorphism" again anyways.

rch 11y ago
NO. Please just no.

drb311 11y ago

Here I am in Birmingham, England. A city determined to blow up our wonderful brutalist buildings and replace it with ornamented crap. Brutalism means letting a functional concrete building look concrete and functional -- revealing its function and materials in the design. A brutalist web site should LOOK like a web site, and build its appearance around its function, not some fancy science-fi fantasy. Here's some text. Here's an image. Here's a heading. Here's a link. They all do different things, they are all in different places. By that reckoning a few of the examples are brutalist. Hacker News, craigslist, Daniel Eatock. They are not minimalist, because they do not hide their functional complexity. They reveal the functional complexity in their design. These are popular, powerful, ugly sites and I'd love to see more of them.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
anthk 11y ago
Brutalist 'hood = junkie area.

dang 11y ago

This is a very bad comment for Hacker News. The maker of that website isn't a buzzword bullshitter. He's someone who became curious about a certain aspect of the web and made a site to express it. It's insightful and well-done, and you can agree or disagree with his view without being a jerk. A bullshitter wouldn't have patiently emailed the people managing all these websites to ask about the philosophy behind their design. In my interaction with him he was exquisitely well-mannered. You could learn from that. More generally, please don't call names in HN arguments. You've been doing this quite a bit, unfortunately. The site guidelines ask you not to, so please (re-)read them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. What we're going for instead is informative conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. If you know more about the historical meaning of brutalism than the rest of us, the thing to do is teach us about it. Heaping condemnation on others' work teaches us nothing—besides which, your comment seems based on the false assumption that terms have no right to change meaning when they migrate from one context to another. So please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. You needn't look any further for an example than drb311's splendid reply to you.