Neubrutalism is taking over the web? • Hacker News Board

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#141

Post by jonnycomputer » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:35 PM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #120

jonnycomputer wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The English word brutal comes from French or medieval Latin brutalis, brutus, meaning dull, stupid. Hence the word "brute". Savagely violent is only one of the meanings of the adjective. It also means "punishingly hard or uncomfortable" or "direct and lacking any attempt to disguise unpleasantness". These latter two meanings of "brutal" seem particularly apt to describe this architectural style; in fact it seems to m…

So "beton brut" or "cidre brut" (dry cider) refer to the concrete's or cider's dullness or stupidity? No, they refer to their rawness and crudeness. The original commentor was spot on. By the way, a more complete set of the meanings of Latin brūtus is heavy, unwieldy, dull, stupid, brutish.

"punishingly hard or uncomfortable" or "direct and lacking any attempt to disguise unpleasantness"

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#142

Post by jrochkind1 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:37 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #140

jrochkind1 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, I was thinking about that too. But one aspect of brutalist architecture is "showing how it's made", making infrastructure visible, making structural apparatus visible. And making raw materials visible for what they are, not trying to make them look like something they're not. That's part of it's "rawness" too, as I've always understood it -- it's not just about using concrete. That part does seem to some extent…

> Stark obvious borders and shadows, instead of subtle gradients that blend in and don't draw your attention to them. The drawback is that in most cases you'd want to draw attention to the actual content, not the appearance of the page. Starker contrast is sensible for page elements that the user can meaningfully interact with, but ISTM that the "claymorphism" style is more effective at managing that trade-off.

Well, yeah, I don't honestly love the examples on this page of this 'trend'! (I'm also in my mid-40s, I suspect this is a young person's thing).

I'm just saying it's one commonality with architectural brutalism (for better or worse, in either case) that can justify the term. Separate consideration to whether we like the design or think it's effective!

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#143

Post by d--b » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

This is very confined to the creative industry or some quirky websites, and I think it will remain so (it's been around for years already).

You can claim that new design trends take over the web when they get adopted by major consumor-facing websites. Like wide grotesk fonts that made it to Dropbox and that we see everywhere these days. But I bet it'll take a long time for my gmail to look like gumroad.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#144

Post by klez » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #128

What happened to claymorphism, then? Was all the rage just 3 months ago (at least in the author's imagination).

You made me search for it. I've never seen a site with that design.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#145

Post by jonnycomputer » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #139

SeanLuke wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Brutalism refers to concrete, full stop. The author clearly hasn't done due diligence.

It's originally a tongue-in-cheek term, first popularized by British Architects Allison and Peter Smithson. The double entendre was not lost on them. Architects have a sense of humour too.

Yes, there is no reason that English speakers would adopt "brutalist" merely because some French speaking people used the word "brut" to describe it. People are thinking too narrowly about how and why words are used, names given and popularized.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#146

Post by c-fe » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

Meai wrote: post #116

c-fe wrote: post #86

One website which seems to be somewhat inbetween "bad design" and neobrutalism is the dutch retailer kruidvat: https://www.kruidvat.nl/

Interesting site, this might be the first example of neo/brutalism that I like a little. It feels somehow fresh and clean like an interactive piece of glossy magazine paper. Somewhere else somebody posted this site which I would qualify as typical brutalism which is terrible from pretty much all viewpoints: https://secretgeek.github.io/html_wysiwyg/html.html

Yes i was suprised also by the design of the kruidvat website, it refreshing. Kruidvat also is known for cheap stuff so i think part of the “cheapness” of the design is well intentional.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#147

Post by thrown12 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

spiderfarmer wrote: post #25

krageon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would I suddenly need a change? Because your designers need a reason to still exist, and redesigning an entire application is what that reason becomes.

It's more that it's just like programmers who feel technical debt forces them to overhaul entire projects.

The difference is that software projects are always hot garbage that barely works. So long as end user functionality doesn't change this is at worst benign.

UI changes on the other hand are always detrimental to users who have spent the time learning how to use the software.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#148

Post by bin_bash » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

yawnxyz wrote: post #48

> Brutalism is a 1950’s architectural trend that was abandoning all decorations, and creating brutally simple buildings made from concrete. They often weren’t even painted to emphasize their brutal nature. So big, brutal blocks of concrete. The word "brut" came from French "Béton brut" which means "raw concrete" — has nothing with how "brutal" we perceive it to be. There's lots of architecture articles covering this…

For architects this is a popular shibboleth. If you imply that "brutalism" is related to "brutal" then you'll be perceived as an outsider that doesn't have any real design knowledge.

This is like implying Java and JavaScript are related.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#149

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 12:58 PM UTC

regentbowerbird wrote: post #137

hprotagonist wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Plan Voisin, which largely defined modernism, seem to me to be quite clearly the starting point of early brutalism, which didn't look all that brutal. “Raze a third of Paris, it is Too Messy!” isn’t “all that brutal”?

Apologies if it was unclear, I meant that Le Corbusier's projects together largely defined modernism, rather than just the Plan Voisin. The Plan was more or less a marketing scheme. It brought attention to the problems modernism was to solve: it was large-scale, clean, egalitarian, bright, full of greenery, and paid attention to transportation — all things Paris had issues with at the time. (1920s Paris still had slu…

[deleted]

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#150

Post by brtkdotse » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:03 PM UTC

mark_and_sweep wrote: post #18

> People simply get bored with how their apps and websites look after six to seven years. They need a change. Is there any research that supports this claim? If I use an app for 6 years, why would I suddenly need a change? I'm still ocassionally using a 10 y/o version of Photoshop. In fact, I'm very happy that it does not change. I wouldn't want to spend time on re-learning the UI. The same is true for many apps that…

I don’t know about apps, but websites are marketing and in marketing you need to stand out. Hence the ever changing trends in design.