Comment by mbateman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mbateman | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

There's a reason why modernism is modern and the rest are mostly historical. A lot of historical approaches to aesthetics are overly flowery and complex by today's standards. This is because in the historical context the fact that any of this was possible was remarkable and something to be emphasized. Today most people don't think it's that remarkable that you can cram a bunch of flowery crap into something, or make it super-intricate and fragile and still transport it. Those are solved problems.

With that said, however, I love Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and a bunch of less minimalist (compared to Bauhaus) modern styles. But they are minimalist compared to those historical styles. In some ways they are partly a streamlining of the more interesting parts of some of more historical styles. They aren't "minimalist" in the technical sense of that term, but I'm not sure that e.g. Apple's products are minimalist in that sense either.

It's hard for me to come up with examples of things that are really totally non-minimalist, like Baroque, that I'd like to see in e.g. software or computer hardware... Maybe some of the spinoffs of Russian constructivism. Some of them aren't really minimalist at all, and many are awesome.

EDIT: Here are some examples of non-Bauhaus-style web design that are still modern. Might be better than looking at historical architecture.

http://www.pho-ku.com/ -- The Designers Republic (Russian constructivism inspired)

http://joshuaink2006.johnoxton.co.uk/ -- web designer's blog I've always found pretty :)

http://www.happycog.com/create/ -- there's a good variety here, most of which could be construed as minimalist, but none of which seems Bauhaus-y.

I think people tend to conflate functional (how it works) minimalism with aesthetic (how it looks) minimalism. (I just made those terms up but they seem to work nicely.)

Functionality and aesthetics are connected but I would argue that functional minimalism doesn’t have to lead to aesthetic minimalism.

Aesthetic minimalism is a specific look: a specific color palette, a specific set of fonts, a specific use of illustrations and photos, a specific use of geometries and space.

Some of those specific properties of aesthetic minimalism may indeed lead to better functionality like less distraction and better readability. Much of the rest of it is mostly fashion. There is a wider range of aesthetics with which your design can work and be functional — I would very much despise living in a world were all everyone ever wants to achieve is a minimalist look.

I would also argue that functional minimalism is always a laudable design goal, independent of your aesthetics. At least when your goal is designing something that people are supposed to use and not, say, art. (I should again emphasize that both are obviously connected. You can’t make your aesthetic choices independent of your functional choices, it’s just that there is a wider range of options than just aesthetic minimalism.)

Modernism isn't really modern anymore. Look at Frank Gehry, he uses the materials of the International/Modernist school, but in a way that is much closer to baroque than modern. e.g. this building in Prague:

http://www.achievement.org/achievers/geh0/large/geh0-030.jpg

Also, it really depends on what kind of architecture you are looking at. "Modern" styles have been popular for skyscrapers, but that has as much to do with the structural requirements of a 300 story building as aesthetic intent.

If you look at most residential architecture, styles are much more homey even pushing the overwhelming opulence of baroque styles. The biggest builders in the US e.g. Pulte, Toll Brothers, don't even offer "modern" styles.

There is also a whole resurgance of the flowery stuff due to the rise in low cost custom manufacturing tools. I gave an Ignite talk on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tl7ZgZnhi0&feature=playe...

Here's a designer that adds illustrations into his sites that even though serve no functionality, add character to his designs. I don't know what style it is, but it sure ain't minimalist, but it still is an enjoyable design, so you can add that to your list...maybe.

http://hugsformonsters.com/

You're correct that I could have used some better examples. But I'd been sitting on the article for a while and thought it was better to get it out than to keep holding it back indefinitely. :-)

> Today most people don't think it's that remarkable that you can cram a bunch of flowery crap into something, or make it super-intricate and fragile and still transport it.

jQuery

But there's a sense in which minimalism is highly ornamental - it uses space, proportion and texture as ornament, rather than treating them as containers for ornamentation. Lots of designers shy away from minimalism because it's a very unforgiving style, and you need to be something of a perfectionist to get it right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com