81–90 of 173 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beaucorp! What a great new word. One of the world-spanning megacorporations from William Gibson but decorated in a Beaux-Arts style.
It's an old word, afaik. Means 'mega' in this context. Also I mispelled it :D
I'm confused. I don't see what makes most of the examples cited here "Brutalist" in any meaningful fashion. Brutalism is, of course, a fuzzy (and contentious) label to begin with. But the article cites two interpretations of the term that we could use to evaluate how Brutalist a given design is: honest, unpretentious and anti-bourgeois and a sense of roughness, exposed structures and visible thought processes The pro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then again, the label 'brutalist' is fraught with conflated interpretations that to some followed logically, yet in other contexts they appear to be in conflict. From the very beginning, the term sprung out of linguistic confusion between French and English [1], where Le Corbusier's French descriptor for 'raw concrete' was lost in translation and reinterpreted by English commentators as brutal, then art imitated life…
Brutalist architecture was a disaster, especially in countries like the UK where poor light and regular rain make grey concrete one of the most depressing and least durable of all possible building materials. The UK was littered with Brutalist "statement" buildings. Most have been pulled down now, and - with a few high profile exceptions, which have escaped the low-budget ghetto most of the movement settled in - the…
the materials don't show through. the websites are ridiculously pretentious.
roughness & exposed structures are likely to be problems in function.
visible thought processes - logorrhea is the other term for that. or brainstorming. Neither should be put up for public view.
the websites the article castigates are identical in style, but not bad, per se. they exemplify a certain aesthetic, and a cookie cutter way of design that is driven by, I think, the north European minimalism trends of the 1960s via Rams and Ives at Apple.
if you want to go for a bad influence that is useful, I suggest pondering LaTeX. Textfiles. http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ . Hacker News. Possibly even the NYT or the WaPo.
design that is aimed at information transmission: not ads, not branding, not razz ma tazz to tickle the eye and neglect knowledge & understanding.
Alexander's concepts on architecture have much to commend themselves when considered for information transmission as well.
I'm confused. I don't see what makes most of the examples cited here "Brutalist" in any meaningful fashion. Brutalism is, of course, a fuzzy (and contentious) label to begin with. But the article cites two interpretations of the term that we could use to evaluate how Brutalist a given design is: honest, unpretentious and anti-bourgeois and a sense of roughness, exposed structures and visible thought processes The pro…
I like the word "brutal" in this context. > If we want to have Brutalism as a valid design approach for the web, we first need to decide on what exactly the word means. Otherwise it will just become... What's brutal about that though? Instead of "design by committees", do it brutally. Instead of A/B testing: throw it onto the screen. Instead of slick: rough. People will find the link that you want them to click, even…
I'm confused. I don't see what makes most of the examples cited here "Brutalist" in any meaningful fashion. Brutalism is, of course, a fuzzy (and contentious) label to begin with. But the article cites two interpretations of the term that we could use to evaluate how Brutalist a given design is: honest, unpretentious and anti-bourgeois and a sense of roughness, exposed structures and visible thought processes The pro…
And I'm fine with that. Generally I'd trust Apple's guidelines a lot more than J. Random Designer's, so for those that are not willing to do a lot of work, I'd really prefer if they chose a decent guideline rather than trying to fake it themselves. Yes, I know that there are those who are great with design, and I'm not discounting them: they should be free to do what they want, but I'd like for there to be a barrier to entry. If you really know what you're doing, sure, go on ahead; otherwise, stick to the default.
I'm confused. I don't see what makes most of the examples cited here "Brutalist" in any meaningful fashion. Brutalism is, of course, a fuzzy (and contentious) label to begin with. But the article cites two interpretations of the term that we could use to evaluate how Brutalist a given design is: honest, unpretentious and anti-bourgeois and a sense of roughness, exposed structures and visible thought processes The pro…
On your last paragraph, I'm afraid that "web Brutalism" is already a parking lot. Anti-bourgeois? Really?
Here's the problem with web design: Nobody actually designs anything. They mindlessly copy the look of things, without giving thought to how things actually work. Examples:
1. Apple made the first iOS have references to real world items (the dropdown menus looked like rolling dials.) Makes sense because touch mobile interfaces were new, and the references gave users a clue how to interact with them. The takeaway for hack designers was to cover everything in fake wood and leather textures.
2. Some designers rightly avoided this trend, and made designs with less references to physical textures. Hack designers declared this the "flat design" trend, and proceeded to strip as much depth from their designs as possible. Now buttons were just squares, with no indication whether they could be pressed or not. There were no borders to break up featureless blobs of content. Icons were redesigned to be as minimal and abstract as possible, to the point where you couldn't tell what the icon was supposed to be.
3. Google created their own design guidelines (material design) that tried to keep the flat look while adding back some much needed affordance by way of slight shadows and animations. Hack designers mistook material design for a new trend, and made their own copy cat interfaces. A style intended to give one company a visual identity, in the hands of poor designers, made every company have the same identity.
The same thing keeps happening. It will happen to web brutalism (whatever that is.)
It won't change until web designers and the people who hire them start seeing the role of designers differently.