Japanese aesthetic principles to change your thinking

This is a good point, and it's also often reflected in Japanese websites. I think it has something to do with (oddly) a Japanese distrust of sparse information. In the US, my websites were always very simple with little ornamentation. Those sites never succeeded in Japan because if there is not an abundance of text and (ideally) graphics, it just looks like nothing is really happening.

My theory is that it has much to do with a culture that grows up expressing ideas pictorially. During my (admittedly short .. just 1yr) time in Japan, I noticed that people don't just write in Kanji, they think in Kanji. They pun in Kanji - one way to pun in Japanese is to use a word that can resolve to alternative Kanji combinations whose combined meanings are funny in context. If they're fishing for an idea or brainstorming, they start drawing Kanji in the air with their fingertips.

And to me the cultural effect of this pervasive visual thinking nearly-since-birth is cool aesthetics. For example, the average "How-to" book in a Japanese book store is chock-full of diagrams and flow charts, with various sections outlined in garish colors like blue and orange, and different fonts for each different type of idea. (Also notice that China, whose characters Japan shares, has very cool aesthetics of its own. Both countries have beautiful landscapes, which probably contributes something as well).

Also, anyone who goes to Japan notices, that they go for totally-over-the-top-ness (for example, the Tokyo reggae subculture is populated by people with really huge dreadlocks).

So combining heavy orientation towards visual stimuli and color, a love of over-the-top-ness, and a healthy dose of anime with its romantic-teen-angst-cool, you get that awesome cyberpunk stuff. But I think it's not easy to characterize analytically as the Zen aesthetics, where the visual form is meant to represent a well-defined state of mind and personal character.

'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' by Shunryu Suzuki.

It's one of the first book I've read about zen (the first was '101 Zen Stories', which I recommend as well). Didn't know it was a classic when I bought it fifteen years ago. I've reread it many, many times.

Edit: I forgot 'Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness' by the same author.

To learn about Zen you can't just pick up a book and read it and go "aha!". Zen is about personal enlightenment and someone can go many years without really understanding Zen. I would suggest reading 公案 (kouan) as a means to understanding. Two references I would suggest are The Gateless Gate (http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan-index.pl) and Book of Serenity (http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/eric.boix/Koan/Shoyoroku/index.html).

I haven't actually gotten to it yet, but Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren has been on my to-read list for quite a while.

Dunno, but I have found that Americans and non-Americans alike have trouble making connections without the conclusion spelled out for them. Simple programming example; consider:

   my %hash = ( foo => 42, bar => 123 ); # create a map
   Class->new               # instantiate class
   Class->new( foo => 42 )  # instantiate class, setting foo = 42
   Class->new( bar => 123 ) # instantiate class, setting bar = 123

With this in mind, how would you instantiate Class, setting foo to 42 and bar to 123? Many people are stumped, and wouldn't even think to try:

    Class->new( foo => 42, bar => 123 )

This confuses me. So I am now careful to spell out conclusions after showing the reader what facts I used to reach them.

Wabi-sabi is an incredibly relaxing mindset for a designer. Shizen is something I try and stick to. I hate things that pretend to be what they're not.