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Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

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Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#161

Post by phoehne »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #130
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…

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…

I think that context matters. Coming out of the 1940's, where fascism preyed on nostalgia and fear, brutalism brings forward a concept of the future that is both fearless and lacks nostalgia. Not seeing the world through your imagination of how you want to see it, but how it really is. Unlike Albert's Spear's or Mussolini's Roman and Greek inspired pieces (setting EUR aside), a brutalist view is honest, simple, and looking forward. There are, of course, counter-examples like the Eastern European memorials - which sometimes favored a heavy grandeur.

My take on this is that designers look at something like a concrete building and thing "big", "ugly", "no-like" and then make something that rejects the current overly-clean, friendly design of most sites. It's not brutalist in the sense it is trying to move to a vision of the future free from deception and nostalgia, it's more dank basement bar and garage band esthetic. Some of those sites look like they could be the covers of 1980 punk or new-wave albums. I could see some of it on a Dickies album cover or promoting some 1982 art-house film about sadistic chipmunks.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#162

Post by jerf »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #107
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…

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…

I see it is a common experience for someone learning a new language as an adult to find the new language they're learning beautiful, because of all the new connections between words and roots... "oh, it's neat how this word for 'child' is from an old root word for 'love', oh it's neat that this word for 'afraid' also carries the connotations of 'dark cave'", etc.

It's easy to miss that your birth language has all the same associations. You just learned it and deeply internalized it at a time when you missed that sort of thing. Look at it with fresh eyes and a bit of study and you may be surprised at what similar beauty lies within it.

And this is a good example. Yes, the denotation of the English word "brutal" and the architecture term "brutalism" may not be directly connected. But the words considered as a whole are connected, across a family of related European languages, with rich associations going back centuries. It is far from merely "coincidence" that the words are so related. It can be helpful and informative to know that the denotations aren't as related as they may look, but trying to tell people that they're completely unrelated terms is incorrect. There is a complicated, interesting, and even in its own way, beautiful connection between brutalism as an architectural style and brutal as an adjective.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#163

Post by multiplegeorges »

opheliate wrote: post #100

I appreciate "neobrutalism" is really a very different movement to architectural brutalism, but I'm not sure how the first examples the author provides [1] can really be compared to the original brutalist movement at all. Sure, they use heavy contrast & minimal colour, but to my understanding at least, the most important aspects of brutalism were its focus on exposing the raw materials with which buildings were const…

Agreed. This article misunderstands brutalism.

In the web's case, what are our raw materials? System fonts, default user-agent stylesheets, #000000 and #ffffff, perhaps?

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#165

Post by smashface »

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 work on internal UI libraries that we use in our products. We updated our designs maybe 4-ish years ago and we're already getting feedback from customers that our designs look dated.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#166

Post by hn_ltl-ftc »

wanda wrote: post #97

I would argue that the best designs are the ones that require the fewest alterations over time. Wikipedia, craigslist, HN, StackOverflow, Indeed, GitHub/GitLab, etc. arguably all fairly consistent while many other e-commerce sites, forums, social networks, job sites and so on have been all over the place and still hideous now. Yes, they've all had tweaks over the years but none have taken dramatic shifts or bent towa…

I'm going to have to say that I'm generally, but only _partially_ in agreement with your list of examples. When talking about "best designs", I would definitely (but respectfully) disagree with the inclusion of StackOverflow, and GitHub. Specifically:

StackOverflow

     Issues: mind-boggling bad layout (poor visual hierarchy, no clear organizing principle); inconsistent typography; too many fonts; weak affordances for useful functionality (filtering/sorting replies); hard to tell obsolete or ancient replies from newer ones
GitHub

     Issues: quasi-random screen layout; hard-to-discover functionality; mystery-meat navigation; low-level behavior/affordance inconsistencies.  (Editorial aside: this looks like the side-effect--or result(!), of a slavish application of an agile feature development model to the UI design of an application.)

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#167

Post by dangerface »

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…

> Is there any research that supports this claim?

Most people will redecorate their house, I don't think this claim requires research to support it. Why do people redecorate their house? Why do they suddenly decide they need a change?

Generally it's understood that people just get bored of looking at the same thing all day every day and that changing up the colours or style might make an old thing new.

Updating a sites style doesn't have to mean moving the ui to make it awkward to use, for example I have the latest version of Photoshop and I use the dark style because I like it over the old school grey I have used since the 90's but all the tools are still in the same place its the same software the only thing thats changed is the style.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#168

Post by bin_bash »

tialaramex wrote: post #155
bin_bash wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course the real thing to know here on Javascript is that they are related. Eich's crazy scripting language "Livescript" was going to exist independently, but then there was a chance to ride on the coattails of the Java enthusiasm, to do that it needed the inappropriate name, and it needed syntax that looks enough like a semicolon language even though it's a Lisp. Some of the obvious defects in Javascript are (at l…

You’re missing my point. Perhaps I should’ve said “interchangeable” instead of “related”. My point is that it makes you an outsider. A recruiter that assumes you know JS simply because you know Java is quickly dismissed for good reason—despite any historical merit.

This is similar in architecture circles. If you mix up “brutal” with “brutalism” you’ll be perceived as a clueless outsider. I’m sure there are architects out there that argue they are related, but without addressing this faux pas head on it makes the author seem ignorant.

I’m married to an architect and have seen this dynamic played out a few times. If you want to make an architect cringe: call brutalism “brutal”.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#169

Post by bin_bash »

kybernetyk wrote: post #156
bin_bash wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>This is like implying Java and JavaScript are related. Which they are. https://wiki.c2.com/?AlgolFamily

In the way I’m related to a catfish. Knowing Java is no more helpful in writing JS as it is knowing Python.

If you mix up JS and Java you will be seen as ignorant.

Re: Neubrutalism is taking over the web?

#170

Post by throwaway284534 »

kybernetyk wrote: post #156
bin_bash wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>This is like implying Java and JavaScript are related. Which they are. https://wiki.c2.com/?AlgolFamily

Technically yes, but I would argue that words “Java” and “JavaScript” have as much to do with one another as “car” and “carpet.” I think most of us have run into a clueless recruiter that assumes the languages are interchangeable or even appropriate for the same applications.
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