7 ms·

This is one of those times where as a working creative that frequently reads Hacker News I straight up face palm. I have to imagine a lot of these commenters w

This is one of those times where as a working creative that frequently reads Hacker News I straight up face palm. I have to imagine a lot of these commenters would say the same in regards to any sort of subjective artistic choice that isn't purely optimized for efficiency. I would like to leave you with a quote by Briano Eno from a really good lecture he gave several years ago that I hope can provide a jumping off point for alternate ways to think about style, and why I think y'all are asking the wrong questions. "So the first question is, why is any of that important? Why do we do it? And notice it’s not only us relatively wealthy people, in terms of global wealth, who are doing it - it’s everybody that we know of. Every human group we know of is spending a lot of their time – in fact almost all of their surplus time and energy – is spent in the act of stylising things and enjoying other people’s stylisations of things. So my question is, what is it for? In fact, my friend Danny Hillus, who’s a scientist, was asked by a well-known science website, along with about 300 other scientists, he was asked what is the most interesting scientific question at the moment? A lot of the other people replied with things about the cosmological constant and Ryman’s Hypothesis and all these very complicated things. And his question was very simple: he said why do we like music? And if you start thinking about that, that is really one of the most mysterious things you can imagine. Why do we even have an interest in music? Why do we have preferences? Why do we like this song better than that one? Why do we like this Beethoven sonata better than that Beethoven sonata? Why do we like this performance of that same sonata better than that other performance? We had very fine distinctions about things that we prefer, aesthetic things. And, yet, none of it seems to have much to do with functionalism, with staying alive and certainly not with industries I would say." - Brian Eno https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2015/bbc-music-john-peel-lecture https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2015/bbc-music-jo...

shaan7 8y ago
Actually the content of the article makes this comment slightly unwarranted (unless I'm misreading the tone). The author has described, quite well, on how typography isn't about just subjective artistic choice but largely its functional implications. Oh and there is a reason why a lot of engineering folks have critical opinions about this. Some of us have worked with designers in the past that simply do not take the effort to explain why a certain design choice was made (even though they put a painful amount of thought into the process). At my office, it took our engineering and design team a lot of time to finally figure out what was missing. Now our discussions have designers going into details of choices which makes it so clear that most of them aren't subjective at all (some are, and that is fine).
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  I think designers have the very challenging job of "threading the needle" between business considerations and aesthetics. Both can be critical depending on the mission. Unfortunately, "subjective" is often used as a dirty word especially around here where some folks even claim to prefer html stripped of all styling. As you pointed out, there is a lot of thought and sweat that goes into the creation of a typeface. The artistic aspects deserve respect and attention not just from the practitioners but also from their users. I think it's actually a good thing that there's a proliferation of typefaces. If a large company, wanting to avoid millions of dollars in fees to license a typeface, can pay a designer to create a new one that's a good thing. Even if the typeface is created for reasons of brand vanity, it puts someone to work and helps to further the development of typography in general.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    > The artistic aspects deserve respect and attention not just from the practitioners but also from their users. As a developer and sysadmin: Let me know how that works for you. End users will rarely if ever recognize your contributions; will only really notice your contribution when it doesn't work. Sorry.
    - dcow 8y ago
      I don’t think your comment is fair mostly because the sysadmin-developer rarely gets to inject aesthetics into their work. When they do, it’s not targeted at end users it’s targeted at other developers. However let me offer a counter anecdote: I love the BSD man pages. Do I think BSD is objectively better than other systems? That’s debatable. But I sure do appreciate the meticulous care with which the BSD manual is maintained. I don’t remember names off the top of my head but I always read the authors section of a BSD man page. If you’re really seeking end user appreciation I’d suggest you try your hand in a relatively more creative context, like writing a user interface. The amount that people care matters enough that a program with fewer features, or that is less stable, or inferior on an “objective” technical level, but with a snazzier, more refined, UI will often be preferred to a technically superior one by users.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
montalbano 8y ago
On why science is 'important', I would add this Poincaré quote: "The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful." I definitely see beauty in music, science, typefaces and many other aspects of the universe.
theoh 8y ago
This isn't really about some kind of caricature of functionalism that HN commenters subscribe to. It's clear that many tech companies have been commissioning fonts they don't really need, and those fonts are often very similar. See this tweet and the responses: https://twitter.com/kodform/status/996447044100386816?s=19 https://twitter.com/kodform/status/996447044100386816?s=19 Digital fonts changed the economics of typeface production. There's a glut of independent typeface designers now, creating fonts that I suppose count as valid self-expression. Far more typefaces are being created than are actually needed. It's as if creating a typeface is like performing music; it was one thing for many performers each to play live to a small audience, it's something totally different when all their recordings are available in the same marketplace. The best performances will obviously get a large share of the market, and recordings that take a lot of resources to produce (like a corporate typeface) will exist in a different category to the homemade ones. As I see it, most of these corporate typefaces lack authenticity. They're typically not a meaningful part of corporate design strategy. It is a cosmetic activity. The exception is those which cover larger that unusual chunks of Unicode.
- ardy42 8y ago
  > This isn't really about some kind of caricature of functionalism that HN commenters subscribe to. It's clear that many tech companies have been commissioning fonts they don't really need, and those fonts are often very similar. *And often functionally inferior to the standard fonts they're aesthetically derivative of, because they were hinted poorly to save development costs.
mbesto 8y ago
> I hope can provide a jumping off point for alternate ways to think about style, and why I think y'all are asking the wrong questions. Except that quote has nothing to do with business decision making around aesthetics. It's about arts & entertainment and an existential pondering about human thirst for creativity. For profit software (which is the topic we're talking about here) is about providing a solution to a real world problem. That being said there is some research around aesthetics from a usability perspective: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ Summary: Users are more tolerant of minor usability issues when they find an interface visually appealing. This aesthetic-usability effect can mask UI problems and can prevent issue discovery during usability testing. Identify instances of the aesthetic-usability effect in your user research by watching what your users do, as well as listening to what they say.
gowld 8y ago
A custom typeface isn't just "style". It's someone else messing with how my documents look. Why we like music is pretty well studied. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/04/11/why-does-music-feel-so-good/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/04... Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection_in_humans#Geoffrey_Miller_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection_in_humans#Geo...
SilasX 8y ago
Art is good, therefore the choice of this vs that typeface is life-or-death? That doesn't follow, I'm afraid, and the quote is very uneconomical with words relative to the point its making.
- 113 8y ago
  "And, yet, none of it seems to have much to do with functionalism, with staying alive and certainly not with industries I would say." That's exactly what the quote says. You're being very uncharitable with your interpretation.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Either way, it's not thing that would come close to justifying the extreme importance these tech companies are placing on it. If you disagree, can you articulate the point in your own words so that others can see the subtlety it's missing? The point of clear communication is so that someone can understand your argument without having to squint and struggle. Edit: To which I would add, the point of quoting someone else's thoughts is because they ostensibly communicate it better than you yourself can. I think this quote fails that.
jimmaswell 8y ago
Simple hypothesis re: music: our evolutionary advantage was our better brains that let us use pattern matching to understand things, so the brain evolved to reward pattern matching, and listening to music presents it with an easy exercise in pattern matching by predicting when the chorus will repeat, expecting chord progressions to be resolved, etc.
- dotancohen 8y ago
  Your post really hits the mark for me. One of my favorite compositions is Beethoven's fifth, and I sometimes find myself identifying a new motif or combination of motifs in that work, even after decades of listening to it. It is a very rich piece, and the motifs develop slowly, simple at first but getting more complex in time. Not more complex motifs, mind you, but the same motif gains a few notes here and there, and sometimes shifts slightly. Very rewarding to find new ones, and only by reading your post do I discover that that piece challenges me actively, as opposed to more passive music. The Wall and The Downward Spiral have similar elements of challenge, now that I think of it.
msla 8y ago
Yes, it's all so stylized that all these bold new bespoke fonts... all look the same.
everdrive 8y ago
We like music because it's an abstraction of the different sounds, tones, and emotions in voice. Dogs might as well have "smell symphonies."

shaan7 8y ago

Actually the content of the article makes this comment slightly unwarranted (unless I'm misreading the tone). The author has described, quite well, on how typography isn't about just subjective artistic choice but largely its functional implications. Oh and there is a reason why a lot of engineering folks have critical opinions about this. Some of us have worked with designers in the past that simply do not take the effort to explain why a certain design choice was made (even though they put a painful amount of thought into the process). At my office, it took our engineering and design team a lot of time to finally figure out what was missing. Now our discussions have designers going into details of choices which makes it so clear that most of them aren't subjective at all (some are, and that is fine).

crispyambulance 8y ago
I think designers have the very challenging job of "threading the needle" between business considerations and aesthetics. Both can be critical depending on the mission. Unfortunately, "subjective" is often used as a dirty word especially around here where some folks even claim to prefer html stripped of all styling. As you pointed out, there is a lot of thought and sweat that goes into the creation of a typeface. The artistic aspects deserve respect and attention not just from the practitioners but also from their users. I think it's actually a good thing that there's a proliferation of typefaces. If a large company, wanting to avoid millions of dollars in fees to license a typeface, can pay a designer to create a new one that's a good thing. Even if the typeface is created for reasons of brand vanity, it puts someone to work and helps to further the development of typography in general.
- falcolas 8y ago
  > The artistic aspects deserve respect and attention not just from the practitioners but also from their users. As a developer and sysadmin: Let me know how that works for you. End users will rarely if ever recognize your contributions; will only really notice your contribution when it doesn't work. Sorry.
  - dcow 8y ago
    I don’t think your comment is fair mostly because the sysadmin-developer rarely gets to inject aesthetics into their work. When they do, it’s not targeted at end users it’s targeted at other developers. However let me offer a counter anecdote: I love the BSD man pages. Do I think BSD is objectively better than other systems? That’s debatable. But I sure do appreciate the meticulous care with which the BSD manual is maintained. I don’t remember names off the top of my head but I always read the authors section of a BSD man page. If you’re really seeking end user appreciation I’d suggest you try your hand in a relatively more creative context, like writing a user interface. The amount that people care matters enough that a program with fewer features, or that is less stable, or inferior on an “objective” technical level, but with a snazzier, more refined, UI will often be preferred to a technically superior one by users.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

montalbano 8y ago

On why science is 'important', I would add this Poincaré quote: "The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful." I definitely see beauty in music, science, typefaces and many other aspects of the universe.

theoh 8y ago

This isn't really about some kind of caricature of functionalism that HN commenters subscribe to. It's clear that many tech companies have been commissioning fonts they don't really need, and those fonts are often very similar. See this tweet and the responses: https://twitter.com/kodform/status/996447044100386816?s=19 https://twitter.com/kodform/status/996447044100386816?s=19 Digital fonts changed the economics of typeface production. There's a glut of independent typeface designers now, creating fonts that I suppose count as valid self-expression. Far more typefaces are being created than are actually needed. It's as if creating a typeface is like performing music; it was one thing for many performers each to play live to a small audience, it's something totally different when all their recordings are available in the same marketplace. The best performances will obviously get a large share of the market, and recordings that take a lot of resources to produce (like a corporate typeface) will exist in a different category to the homemade ones. As I see it, most of these corporate typefaces lack authenticity. They're typically not a meaningful part of corporate design strategy. It is a cosmetic activity. The exception is those which cover larger that unusual chunks of Unicode.

ardy42 8y ago
> This isn't really about some kind of caricature of functionalism that HN commenters subscribe to. It's clear that many tech companies have been commissioning fonts they don't really need, and those fonts are often very similar. *And often functionally inferior to the standard fonts they're aesthetically derivative of, because they were hinted poorly to save development costs.

mbesto 8y ago

> I hope can provide a jumping off point for alternate ways to think about style, and why I think y'all are asking the wrong questions. Except that quote has nothing to do with business decision making around aesthetics. It's about arts & entertainment and an existential pondering about human thirst for creativity. For profit software (which is the topic we're talking about here) is about providing a solution to a real world problem. That being said there is some research around aesthetics from a usability perspective: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ Summary: Users are more tolerant of minor usability issues when they find an interface visually appealing. This aesthetic-usability effect can mask UI problems and can prevent issue discovery during usability testing. Identify instances of the aesthetic-usability effect in your user research by watching what your users do, as well as listening to what they say.

gowld 8y ago

A custom typeface isn't just "style". It's someone else messing with how my documents look. Why we like music is pretty well studied. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/04/11/why-does-music-feel-so-good/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/04... Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection_in_humans#Geoffrey_Miller_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection_in_humans#Geo...

SilasX 8y ago

Art is good, therefore the choice of this vs that typeface is life-or-death? That doesn't follow, I'm afraid, and the quote is very uneconomical with words relative to the point its making.

113 8y ago
"And, yet, none of it seems to have much to do with functionalism, with staying alive and certainly not with industries I would say." That's exactly what the quote says. You're being very uncharitable with your interpretation.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Either way, it's not thing that would come close to justifying the extreme importance these tech companies are placing on it. If you disagree, can you articulate the point in your own words so that others can see the subtlety it's missing? The point of clear communication is so that someone can understand your argument without having to squint and struggle. Edit: To which I would add, the point of quoting someone else's thoughts is because they ostensibly communicate it better than you yourself can. I think this quote fails that.

jimmaswell 8y ago

Simple hypothesis re: music: our evolutionary advantage was our better brains that let us use pattern matching to understand things, so the brain evolved to reward pattern matching, and listening to music presents it with an easy exercise in pattern matching by predicting when the chorus will repeat, expecting chord progressions to be resolved, etc.

dotancohen 8y ago
Your post really hits the mark for me. One of my favorite compositions is Beethoven's fifth, and I sometimes find myself identifying a new motif or combination of motifs in that work, even after decades of listening to it. It is a very rich piece, and the motifs develop slowly, simple at first but getting more complex in time. Not more complex motifs, mind you, but the same motif gains a few notes here and there, and sometimes shifts slightly. Very rewarding to find new ones, and only by reading your post do I discover that that piece challenges me actively, as opposed to more passive music. The Wall and The Downward Spiral have similar elements of challenge, now that I think of it.

msla 8y ago

Yes, it's all so stylized that all these bold new bespoke fonts... all look the same.

everdrive 8y ago

We like music because it's an abstraction of the different sounds, tones, and emotions in voice. Dogs might as well have "smell symphonies."