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The age of average

alexmurrell.co.uk

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Re: The age of average

#171

Post by jayd16 »

crazygringo wrote: post #123

What the article describes is correct, but I don't think the words "average" or "homogeneity" or "conformity" are the right terms, as they seem to carry negative connotations here. Rather, the right word is "convergence". The point is, people like certain things aesthetically. It used to be that artists and designers were still trying to figure out what looks good, and trying all the things. But now we've tried so ma…

I think convergence is also not quite right because you're not _exactly_ describing a mono-culture. Several different designs might be popular and good. Instead, we're at an age where everything is hyper-tuned.

Its an age of wonder not average, but with that comes the fact that its harder to build a better mouse trap. Popular things can have design input from millions (and billions if you count something like a Facebook feed).

Re: The age of average

#172

Post by acuozzo »

Last5Digits wrote: post #135

I'm always wary of articles like this. The feeling of things becoming mediocre strongly resonates with me, but I am aware that there could be a great many different biases at play. When I was younger, entertainment media felt magical. The complexity and depth of experiences I could get from even a second-rate story was immense. I remember staying up late at night to process the last movie I watched, or feeling that r…

> I barely consume media nowadays, because every book, movie, TV show, video game and song fails to give me an interesting or meaningful experience.

I felt this way too until I realized that what I was really experiencing was that my desire to explore outside of my comfort zone had lessened with age.

Have you jumped into silent films? Buster Keaton?

Have you explored European Atmospheric Cinema? Jean-Luc Godard?

Art House? Non-Kurosawa Japanese films? Pre-Bollywood Indian films?

In the past, when confronted with questions like that, I would reply with a statement akin to: "Yeah, but that's not what interests me!"

And the lesson I needed to learn about myself was contained within those— my own —words.

Re: The age of average

#173

Post by karmakaze »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #150
bumby wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried making this same point when it comes to auto designs (at least in the competitive, cost-sensitive ones). A lot of mid-sized cars look the same because the design constraints generally converge on the same handful of principles. They've converged not in the aesthetic sense as much as the engineering sense: because they work at a relatively low cost. (I'm speaking mainly about things like aerodynamics here,…

I’d argue that convergence _is_ soulless-ness and cars present a great example of the point. The “soul” of something that is inanimate is the qualities that make it memorable or stick it in our mind with some manner of tactility. Not literal tactility but the nature of how you can visualize something so clearly it’s almost like you can touch it in your mind. I’m getting a bit spacey here but let’s get concrete: Jerem…

I agree that convergence is soullessness, both on the part of the producer and consumer who is choosing the default or merely practical. That's fine for those who only see cars as a means of transportation. A 'better looking' (according to those 'with taste') shape of a car doesn't have to cost more intrinsically. The reason we have many similar, not so great looking cars is because it's not a primary filter for sales volume. Something that paints outside convergent lines, is however a reason why a potential buyer would not buy it.

Poor quality can give a car a kind of personality, but that's not the soul of it. The same car could be reliable and have the same soul. The main difference is whether it is developed to a specific vision, or if checking boxes and aggregated by committee.

Re: The age of average

#174

Post by shadowfoxx »

nebulousthree wrote: post #138

Who knew that the primary incentive being economic would lead to a convergence of human behaviours? Every profit-motive champion raved about the variety produced by means of competition. Instead, the fear of failure from truly distinguishing oneself has driven competitive differences to the edge where it remains superficial and unimportant. Alpine white or cream white paint? Straight tube or spherical Edison bulbs? N…

Thank you, I was writing out something similar.

I find it intentional on the authors part that they didn't include "capital" in any of their observations. All houses in the suburbs look the same because its... cheaper to do it that way. There's less risk involved. People don't do anything interesting to their property because of "property value". Why would I want to make my space /interesting/ when this is obviously just an investment I'm going to sell and then live in my /real/ home. (Which I won't make interesting because => go back to square 1)

Its expensive to do interesting things. The majority of businesses are not 1B profitable - they need a place to do business all the same. So an efficient box it is!

The Art example at the beginning is funny to me. People, largely, don't have a lot of ideas about what they 'want' out of any given topic they don't have a ton of interest in. I'd be willing to bet the people they asked haven't given a lot of thought into the art they preferred until they were asked. You have to actively look around to discover new things, you can't expect newness to be fed to you. Emphasis on the Discovery part.

Its all a bit, "Drawing conclusions about the world from zoomed out observations instead of actually looking into the forces that shape our world".

Re: The age of average

#175

Post by thwarted »

sangnoir wrote: post #160
mdorazio wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point, but I think there's a qualifier that convergence in this case is convergence to mass-market appeal. Everything looks the same because that's the aesthetic that most appeals to ~75% of the population. What's missing is that there seems to be an increasing lack of alternative designs to appeal to the other ~25%.

The link between sameness and mass-market capitalism is obvious to me. I was surprised by its absence in the article and comments here. Alternative designs that cater to a fraction (25%) of the population will not have the full benefit of economies of scale, so emd up having higher prices and forced to position as up-market/luxury products - which imposes another set of constraints that also impose sameness (see opti…

A quirky product that succeeds would cease to be quirky. It would no longer stand out. Difference and rarity go hand in hand.

Re: The age of average

#176

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

hgsgm wrote: post #156
ryandrake wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they had to ultra-optimize the aerodynamics so all the cars look like the same bar of soap (they don't have to), they could still at least paint the damn soap a different color. But, no. All you see coming out of the factory are white, silver, gray, black, the occasional red and the occasional blue. What's driving this? That's what the article is about. Is it actually pull from customers, or is it push from t…

Companies like selling cars, so I think they pick colors most people prefer. "Exciting" "Unique" colors look a bit silly or non-unique when your neighbors have the same color. If what you are asking for is 1000 color choices instead of 10, that's obviously more expensive to mass produce or customize.

> "Exciting" "Unique" colors look a bit silly or non-unique when your neighbors have the same color.

Reminds me a lot of the orange Chevys Cruzing around.

Re: The age of average

#178

Post by mrwnmonm »

nomdep wrote: post #82
trgn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, it's called the golden rule. Also, rejecting love and affection is the dumbest thing a person will ever do (not to speak to GPs example specifically of course, i don't know the situation).

I’m pretty sure most of these girls are doing the same with your brother. Not every relation should end in happily ever after

LOL. I love this comment, although I think you are responding to the wrong person.

Re: The age of average

#179

Post by nradov »

ryandrake wrote: post #148
bumby wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried making this same point when it comes to auto designs (at least in the competitive, cost-sensitive ones). A lot of mid-sized cars look the same because the design constraints generally converge on the same handful of principles. They've converged not in the aesthetic sense as much as the engineering sense: because they work at a relatively low cost. (I'm speaking mainly about things like aerodynamics here,…

Even if they had to ultra-optimize the aerodynamics so all the cars look like the same bar of soap (they don't have to), they could still at least paint the damn soap a different color. But, no. All you see coming out of the factory are white, silver, gray, black, the occasional red and the occasional blue. What's driving this? That's what the article is about. Is it actually pull from customers, or is it push from t…

Car paint colors are driven by pull from franchised dealers and the dealership financing model, as well as by push from supply chain issues. In the US at least, most mainstream consumers expect to buy a car from dealer inventory and drive it away that day. So dealers mostly order only a few bland colors because most consumers are willing to settle for those as long as the car has the options they want and they get a good price. Like maybe you would prefer a bright green car but will settle for gray because the dealer offers low-interest financing. Dealers also incur inventory costs (floorplan financing) and their business model depends on rapid turnover so they can't afford to order "lot poison" that sits for months waiting for the right customer. Reducing color choices also simplifies manufacturing operations.

Some luxury or performance oriented car brands such as Porsche and Tesla do allow color orders from a wider palette, sometimes to the extent of even doing custom paint blending to match a customer sample. But those customers are willing to wait longer and pay more. They don't need basic transportation to get to work tomorrow.

Re: The age of average

#180

Post by dsevil »

All the websites look the same but it's mostly because all the frameworks are the same. I'm thinking mainly of Bootstrap and Zurb Foundation. They share a lot of the same principles such as the 12-column grid, general typographic dimensions, button styles, etc. Granted, a lot of that stuff is for good reasons. In point of actual fact, I've studied their final CSS products and they share quite many implementation details.

There's also that "rule of threes" which almost every client likes.

Also, most of the new fonts are derivative. Amazon Ember looks like a bland mashup of Calibri and ITC Officina, like the latter of which a lot of other fonts look, and the former of which is bland as heck. Poppins looks like ITC Avant Garde Gothic. TheSansMono kind of looks like Consolas. There are a truckload of direct modifications of DejaVu Sans Mono/Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. Bitstream eVera Sans is a fugly bizarro version of Verdana/Tahoma.

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