Taste for Makers

创造者的品味

Taste. You don't hear that word much now. And yet we still need the underlying concept, whatever we call it. What my friend meant was that he wanted students who were not just good technicians, but who could use their technical knowledge to design beautiful things.

Mathematicians call good work "beautiful," and so, either now or in the past, have scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, designers, writers, and painters. Is it just a coinsidence that they used the same word or is there some overlap(v.部分重叠 n.重叠的部分) in what they meant? If there is an overlap, can we use one field's discoveries about beauty to help us in another?

For those of us who design things, these are not just theoritical questions. If there is such a thing as beauty, we need to be able to recognize it. We need good taste to make good things. Instead of treating beauty as an airy abstraction, to be either blathered(v.说胡话，罗嗦 n.胡话，废话) about or avoided depending on how one feels about an airy abstraction. Let's try considering it as a practical question: How do you make good stuff?

If you metion taste nowadays, a lot of people will tell you that "taste is subjective." They believe this because it really feels that way to them. When they like something, they have no idea why. It could be because it's beautiful, or because their mother had one, or because they saw a movie star with one in a magazine, or because they know it's expensive. Their thoughts are a tangle of unexamined impulses.

Saying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it's not true. You feel this when you start to design things.
Whatever job people do, they naturally want to do better. Football players like to win games. CEOs like to increase earnings. It's a matter of pride, and a real pleasure, to get better at your job. But if your job is to design things, and there is no such thing as beauty, then there is no way to get better at your job. If taste is just personal preference, then everyone's is already perfect: you like whatever you like, and that's it.

 

Good design is simple.

You hear this from math to painting. In math it means a shorter proof tends to be a better one. Where axioms(n.公理 原理 定理) are concerned, especially less is more. It means much the same thing in programming. For architects and designers it means that beauty should depend on a few carefully chosen structural elements rather than a profusion(n.大量 丰富 过分 浪费 挥霍) of superficial（a.表面 表皮 肤浅）ornament.(Ornament is not in itself bad, only when it's camouflage(n.伪装 隐藏 掩盖) on insipid(a.枯燥 乏味) form). Similarly, in painting, a still life of a few carefully observed and solidly modelled objects will tend to be more interesting than a stretch of flashy but mindlessly repetitive painting of, say, a lace collar. In writing it means: say what you mean and say it briefly.

It seems strange to have to emphasize simplicity. You'd think simple is the default, ornate is more work. But something seems to come over people when they try to be creative. Beginning writers adopt a pompous(a.自负 夸大 浮夸) tone that doesn't sound anything like the way they speak.Designers trying to be artistic resort to swooshes and curlicues. Painters discover that they're expressionists. It's all evasion(n.逃避 回避 借口). Underneath the long words or the "expressive" brush strokes, there is not much going on, and that's frightening.

When you're forced to be simple, you're forced to face the real problem. When you can't deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance(n.主旨 实质).

 

Good design is timeless.

n math, every proof is timeless unless it contains a mistake. So what does Hardy mean when he says there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics? He means the same thing Kelly Johnson did: If something is ugly,it can't be the best solution. There must be a better one, and eventually someone will discover it.

Aiming at the timelessness is a way to make yourself find the best answer: If you can imagine someone surpassing(vt.超过 优于) you, you should do it yourself. Some of the greatest masters did this so well that they left little room for those who came after.Every engraver since Durer has had to live in his shadow.

以永恒为目标，是迫使自己发现最佳答案的一个方法：如果你能想象出别人超过你的方式，你应该自己去做。一些大师级的人物在这方面做得如此之好以至于没怎么给后来者留空间，如丢勒之后的版画家就不得不生活在在他的阴影之下。

Aiming at timelessness is also a way to evade the grip(n.紧握 掌握 理解力 vt.vi. 抓紧 吸引) of fashion. Fashions almost by definition change with time, so if you can make something that will still look good far into the future, then its appeal must derive(vt.vi. 得到 源于) more from merit(n.优点 长处 vt.值得) and less from fashion.

Strangely enough, if you want to make something that will appeal to future generation, one way to do it is to try to appeal to past generations. It's hard to guess what the future will be like, but we can be sure it will be like the past in caring nothing for present fashion. So if you can make something that appeals to people today and would also have appealed to people in 1500. There is a good chance it will appeal to people in 2500.

 

Good design solves the right problems