5 ms·

So what are some good examples of recent non-minimalist design?

by goto11 6y ago

js8 6y ago
Speaking of GUIs and such, I would look at computer games. They often have a very distinct style, and have to balance it with the actual need to get stuff done (in game). For example, I play Factorio quite a bit now, and the UX is a pleasure. The graphic design itself plays only a small role in that, but all the traditional elements, like buttons easy to recognize, ability to have hotkeys, tooltips, highlights, etc. are there.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ideamotor 6y ago
Hacker News (does that count as recent?), websites https://brutalistwebsites.com/ https://brutalistwebsites.com/, interior design https://youtu.be/-ApyRpd2tug https://youtu.be/-ApyRpd2tug, indie games https://fantasticarcade.com/games/ https://fantasticarcade.com/games/. So many things. It certainly varies in quality more, for obvious reasons.
- coldtea 6y ago
  The parent asked for non-minimalist though - hacker news is decidely minimalist
  - toomim 6y ago
    This is so hard to define. On the one hand, hacker news is covered in small-font text, dense with information. On the other hand, there's nothing else on the page. Is that minimal, or info-abundant?
    - koolhaas 6y ago
      For me, minimal is about what design elements and other details you decide to exclude, at a systems level. I think designs can be dense but minimal. e.g. check out the work of Ryoji Ikeda - information density stripped down to the bare essentials.
      - yoz-y 6y ago
        Isn't it kind of hard to talk about information density when it comes to art?
        TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        Very much not.
        throwanem 6y ago
        Isn't it? I think it depends on the art. You can learn a lot about wasps from the pictures I take of them, but the giant triptych of a hunting P. metricus forager that spans one wall of my living room doesn't convey the same meaning that a series of illustrations in an entomology textbook would.
        TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        That depends on what you mean by information and density. There's a concept of perceptual qualia-density which has nothing to do with semantic density in the linguistic/narrative sense.
        throwanem 6y ago
        I'm very much out of my depth in the formal language of academic philosophy, but if I'm understanding correctly, the concept you describe refers roughly to the density and - I guess completeness? - of information, contained in a given signification, about the perception which elicited the act of signification from whoever performed it. That perception isn't assumed to be accurate, but that's beside the point, which is to measure the fidelity of signification to perception. (I think. I'm working pretty much off Isaac's 2010 dissertation, and can't really say how well that work captures the subject or how well my understanding captures that work.) In that sense, I think my photos and the textbook illustrations must be even more different than I already considered them to be. The illustrations deliberately don't capture the qualia that elicited them; they are intentionally abstract, sacrificing most detail in order by contrast to highlight the specific aspects considered most useful to the student of whatever specific topic they illustrate. They're information-dense in that sense, but not in the one under discussion here. My photos [1] are just the opposite; not only are they not abstracted, I've put a fair amount of work into editing them - cropping, white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpening, fine HSL adjustment per-channel - precisely with the intent that they should represent as accurately as possible, not the assorted energies of photons which impinged on the camera's sensor and were sampled over the course of 4ms or however long, but what I saw as I watched a hunting animal and her prey through a machine which both magnified them considerably and (by dint of a rubber eye cup) blocked out all other light. Which, if I understand the philosophical concept correctly, makes the photos in that sense by far the richer in informational content of the two examples. It might, anyway. There is a good deal that those photos don't capture, like the bright heat of the blazing June day on which I took them - the darkness of the backgrounds is an artifact of technique, rather than a true representation of the scene. Or, beyond that, the mix of lingering fear and burgeoning fascination I felt as I took the shots, with the lens objective six inches from the subjects, and their sisters and fellow foragers buzzing about my head and not minding me at all - it was in fact during the taking of these shots that I lost my previously lively fear of wasps, this change occasioned in part by the camera itself and the sense of emotional distance its presentation of images can impose upon its user. In this case, it was that distance - that sense that, whatever I saw through the machine, it did not involve me as it would if seen with bare eyes - that enabled me to approach in spite of fear, eventually close enough to take these shots and in so doing first recognize the beauty both of the hunting animals themselves, and of the singleminded, innocent ruthlessness with which they stalk, pursue, capture, and dispose of prey. When after a while I noticed I was in the middle of a small eccentric cloud of paper wasps, none of whom gave any sign even of noticing my presence save as a static obstacle to be avoided in flight, the last of my fear of wasps evaporated, and I haven't felt it again since. I think that more than anything else was what moved me to make of those raw images what I have, but I don't know how much that experience constitutes of their informational content, or how much that determination is even mine to make. [1] https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus
yoz-y 6y ago
I'd be interested in examples of modern, minimalist design systems that put function before form. e.g.: clear separation of actionable vs non-actionable elements, proper links and such.
- kevinmchugh 6y ago
  Yes, this is the interesting thing. People are saying minimalism is easy, designers are lazy, etc, and that doesn't match my experience. Spartan, barren, asceticism is easy, but presenting only what's necessary, only when it's necessary is not.
gatinsama 6y ago
If you mean in the physical world, find some resources on Art Nouveau and Art Deco, the latest architecture styles before Modernism took over. Or for something newer, Post-Modernism.

So what are some good examples of recent non-minimalist design?

by goto11 6y ago

So what are some good examples of recent non-minimalist design?

js8 6y ago

Speaking of GUIs and such, I would look at computer games. They often have a very distinct style, and have to balance it with the actual need to get stuff done (in game). For example, I play Factorio quite a bit now, and the UX is a pleasure. The graphic design itself plays only a small role in that, but all the traditional elements, like buttons easy to recognize, ability to have hotkeys, tooltips, highlights, etc. are there.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ideamotor 6y ago

Hacker News (does that count as recent?), websites https://brutalistwebsites.com/ https://brutalistwebsites.com/, interior design https://youtu.be/-ApyRpd2tug https://youtu.be/-ApyRpd2tug, indie games https://fantasticarcade.com/games/ https://fantasticarcade.com/games/. So many things. It certainly varies in quality more, for obvious reasons.

coldtea 6y ago
The parent asked for non-minimalist though - hacker news is decidely minimalist
- toomim 6y ago
  This is so hard to define. On the one hand, hacker news is covered in small-font text, dense with information. On the other hand, there's nothing else on the page. Is that minimal, or info-abundant?
  - koolhaas 6y ago
    For me, minimal is about what design elements and other details you decide to exclude, at a systems level. I think designs can be dense but minimal. e.g. check out the work of Ryoji Ikeda - information density stripped down to the bare essentials.
    - yoz-y 6y ago
      Isn't it kind of hard to talk about information density when it comes to art?
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        Very much not.
        throwanem 6y ago
        Isn't it? I think it depends on the art. You can learn a lot about wasps from the pictures I take of them, but the giant triptych of a hunting P. metricus forager that spans one wall of my living room doesn't convey the same meaning that a series of illustrations in an entomology textbook would.
        TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        That depends on what you mean by information and density. There's a concept of perceptual qualia-density which has nothing to do with semantic density in the linguistic/narrative sense.
        throwanem 6y ago
        I'm very much out of my depth in the formal language of academic philosophy, but if I'm understanding correctly, the concept you describe refers roughly to the density and - I guess completeness? - of information, contained in a given signification, about the perception which elicited the act of signification from whoever performed it. That perception isn't assumed to be accurate, but that's beside the point, which is to measure the fidelity of signification to perception. (I think. I'm working pretty much off Isaac's 2010 dissertation, and can't really say how well that work captures the subject or how well my understanding captures that work.) In that sense, I think my photos and the textbook illustrations must be even more different than I already considered them to be. The illustrations deliberately don't capture the qualia that elicited them; they are intentionally abstract, sacrificing most detail in order by contrast to highlight the specific aspects considered most useful to the student of whatever specific topic they illustrate. They're information-dense in that sense, but not in the one under discussion here. My photos [1] are just the opposite; not only are they not abstracted, I've put a fair amount of work into editing them - cropping, white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpening, fine HSL adjustment per-channel - precisely with the intent that they should represent as accurately as possible, not the assorted energies of photons which impinged on the camera's sensor and were sampled over the course of 4ms or however long, but what I saw as I watched a hunting animal and her prey through a machine which both magnified them considerably and (by dint of a rubber eye cup) blocked out all other light. Which, if I understand the philosophical concept correctly, makes the photos in that sense by far the richer in informational content of the two examples. It might, anyway. There is a good deal that those photos don't capture, like the bright heat of the blazing June day on which I took them - the darkness of the backgrounds is an artifact of technique, rather than a true representation of the scene. Or, beyond that, the mix of lingering fear and burgeoning fascination I felt as I took the shots, with the lens objective six inches from the subjects, and their sisters and fellow foragers buzzing about my head and not minding me at all - it was in fact during the taking of these shots that I lost my previously lively fear of wasps, this change occasioned in part by the camera itself and the sense of emotional distance its presentation of images can impose upon its user. In this case, it was that distance - that sense that, whatever I saw through the machine, it did not involve me as it would if seen with bare eyes - that enabled me to approach in spite of fear, eventually close enough to take these shots and in so doing first recognize the beauty both of the hunting animals themselves, and of the singleminded, innocent ruthlessness with which they stalk, pursue, capture, and dispose of prey. When after a while I noticed I was in the middle of a small eccentric cloud of paper wasps, none of whom gave any sign even of noticing my presence save as a static obstacle to be avoided in flight, the last of my fear of wasps evaporated, and I haven't felt it again since. I think that more than anything else was what moved me to make of those raw images what I have, but I don't know how much that experience constitutes of their informational content, or how much that determination is even mine to make. [1] https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus

yoz-y 6y ago

I'd be interested in examples of modern, minimalist design systems that put function before form. e.g.: clear separation of actionable vs non-actionable elements, proper links and such.

kevinmchugh 6y ago
Yes, this is the interesting thing. People are saying minimalism is easy, designers are lazy, etc, and that doesn't match my experience. Spartan, barren, asceticism is easy, but presenting only what's necessary, only when it's necessary is not.

gatinsama 6y ago

If you mean in the physical world, find some resources on Art Nouveau and Art Deco, the latest architecture styles before Modernism took over. Or for something newer, Post-Modernism.