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I disagree so strongly even though I also found the font horrible. Design is used to communicate. Whether or not you want to communicate "in the clearest way po

I disagree so strongly even though I also found the font horrible. Design is used to communicate. Whether or not you want to communicate "in the clearest way possible" is a choice. There are many other choices to be made and some may conflict with that choice. Some choices will resonate with you and some will aggravate. But only the author/designer can speak to whether the design was successful in it's aims

CleanCoder 3y ago
> Whether or not you want to communicate "in the clearest way possible" is a choice. This is far from "clearest way possible", it's not even in the middle. This choice impedes communication which makes is less useful, by your definition. > But only the author/designer can speak to whether the design was successful in it's aims I find it difficult to believe that the author's aim was to share a story in such way that's unnecessarily harder to consume, by a large portion of people otherwise interested in their thoughts.
- sainez 3y ago
  Anti-design[1] is a movement which rejects the over-sanitation of design. Type a random query into Google and click through the first few links. What will you see? An endless sea of black-on-white, sans-serif, grids of text. Anti-design is effective in making things memorable and engaging. When I attended Davis, I first thought the Social Sciences Building[2] was a bit of an eye sore. It was intentionally designed to be challenging. Now it is one of my most vivid memories of the campus. 1: https://99designs.com/blog/design-history-movements/anti-design/ https://99designs.com/blog/design-history-movements/anti-des... 2: https://localwiki.org/davis/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_Building https://localwiki.org/davis/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_B...
- Misdicorl 3y ago
  You find it difficult to believe? The person clearly worked hard to achieve this aesthetic. The font even sort of matches the illustrations. This is clearly intentional from my pov. This aesthetic was more important to the author than ease of reading/consumption.
sainez 3y ago
Design is the process of bringing ideas into form. It is intentional creation. This process does not necessarily include intentional communication: it can be purely utilitarian. The form itself is what unavoidably communicates the values of the designer. I do agree that clarity or efficiency are not necessarily the highest values to strive for.
fasterik 3y ago
I don't think the designer is the authority on whether a design is good or not. Just like a novelist, director, or composer doesn't get to dictate whether their output was creatively successful. Paul Graham's essay on taste sums it up pretty well: http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html
- Misdicorl 3y ago
  Fair enough and I also agree. Got sloppy towards the end there

CleanCoder 3y ago

> Whether or not you want to communicate "in the clearest way possible" is a choice. This is far from "clearest way possible", it's not even in the middle. This choice impedes communication which makes is less useful, by your definition. > But only the author/designer can speak to whether the design was successful in it's aims I find it difficult to believe that the author's aim was to share a story in such way that's unnecessarily harder to consume, by a large portion of people otherwise interested in their thoughts.

sainez 3y ago
Anti-design[1] is a movement which rejects the over-sanitation of design. Type a random query into Google and click through the first few links. What will you see? An endless sea of black-on-white, sans-serif, grids of text. Anti-design is effective in making things memorable and engaging. When I attended Davis, I first thought the Social Sciences Building[2] was a bit of an eye sore. It was intentionally designed to be challenging. Now it is one of my most vivid memories of the campus. 1: https://99designs.com/blog/design-history-movements/anti-design/ https://99designs.com/blog/design-history-movements/anti-des... 2: https://localwiki.org/davis/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_Building https://localwiki.org/davis/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_B...
Misdicorl 3y ago
You find it difficult to believe? The person clearly worked hard to achieve this aesthetic. The font even sort of matches the illustrations. This is clearly intentional from my pov. This aesthetic was more important to the author than ease of reading/consumption.

sainez 3y ago

Design is the process of bringing ideas into form. It is intentional creation. This process does not necessarily include intentional communication: it can be purely utilitarian. The form itself is what unavoidably communicates the values of the designer. I do agree that clarity or efficiency are not necessarily the highest values to strive for.

fasterik 3y ago

I don't think the designer is the authority on whether a design is good or not. Just like a novelist, director, or composer doesn't get to dictate whether their output was creatively successful. Paul Graham's essay on taste sums it up pretty well: http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

Misdicorl 3y ago
Fair enough and I also agree. Got sloppy towards the end there