Virginia Postrel: Smart and Pretty
Virginia Postrel: Smart and PrettyI just finished reading Postrel's The Substance of Style. Enjoyed the book immensely. The book analyzes the growing awareness of aesthetics in every day life, from products to personal appearances. In the last chapter, Smart and Pretty, Postrel discusses the prevalent thinking that if something is pretty, it must be dumb. This thinking stems from an engraved fear of being cheated--if someone is putting in extra effort into making something pretty, it could only mean that he/she is purposefully trying to cover up something else. In line of this thinking attractive presentations are a cover up for mediocre substance. But this line of thinking precludes the other option of having both substance and style, of being both smart and pretty, "Nearly every definition of design starts by emphatically stating that the profession isn’t just about surfaces… It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing."
It’s the same dilemma that we e-learning designers are facing. A few years of amateurish design that focused on being pretty rather than on being smart and pretty have created this fear of being cheated in the minds of many—the fear that relegates all e-learning to being frivolous. Guess, it’s going to take some time for this fear to go away and it’s going to take some great substance with style.
Here's The Atlantic's interview with Postrel.
Permalink | Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Page 1 of 1 pages