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Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

nathanbarry.com

11–20 of 44 posts

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#11
I posit that taste is a skill. There's no reason why someone might be able to work to become better at understanding, distilling, and working with known stylistic & cultural touchstones.

Of course, the meaning of "taste" in general is also ripe for a huge argument about semantics between folks with some free time on their hands.

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that point was completely lost on the OP. As far as lack of taste is concerned, people need to be more self critical and understand their limits. I'm a good engineer, but not so great designer, so it's a lot more cost effective for me to find a good designer to work with.

You're right. That was lost on me. I remembered the transitions in the original Star Wars, but didn’t think they were so over the top. Now I need to go back and watch the original films to see how bad they really are.

By the by, the wipes Lucas used in the original Star Wars trilogy were inspired by the way Kurosawa (one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, say Wikipedia) used wipes and "help evoke a kinship to old pulp science fiction novels and serials." They are supposed to be campy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipe_%28transition%29

At some point in their career I think everyone learns that a "good taste" and artistry requires a solid knowledge of history, regardless of whether you choose to build on it or depart from it. The naive approach only gets you so far. The old anecdote about how young Picasso trained on more traditional art techniques before becoming free to go off into the deep end.

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#13

I posit that taste is a skill. There's no reason why someone might be able to work to become better at understanding, distilling, and working with known stylistic & cultural touchstones. Of course, the meaning of "taste" in general is also ripe for a huge argument about semantics between folks with some free time on their hands.

I think you're right that "taste is a skill." I think a lot of people would appreciate content on developing taste.

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#14
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. That was lost on me. I remembered the transitions in the original Star Wars, but didn’t think they were so over the top. Now I need to go back and watch the original films to see how bad they really are.

By the by, the wipes Lucas used in the original Star Wars trilogy were inspired by the way Kurosawa (one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, say Wikipedia) used wipes and "help evoke a kinship to old pulp science fiction novels and serials." They are supposed to be campy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipe_%28transition%29 At some point in their career I think everyone learns tha…

It's interesting to read about where they have been used. I think the effects that bothered me the most were the blinds and dissolve transitions.

"You will find as you develop in your career that a well-developed taste requires a good knowledge of history, regardless of whether you choose to build on it or depart from it."

I agree completely.

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#15

"If you watch the newer Star Wars movies pay attention to the transitions near the end. When they are switching between each of the battle scenes they use Powerpoint style transitions. Dissolve, blinds, swipe. It’s an amateur effect in a movie that is otherwise very technically difficult and visually impressive. The skill is there, but taste is lacking." I'm sure the use of dissolves and wipes in the newer Star Wars…

To add to this, those wipes are very deliberate homages to the Flash Gordan serials and other films from that era that George Lucas watched as reruns when he was a child. Those exact wipes were in the originals too. Its just a fun little thing they put in the movies to give this quick-paced serial feel to them and to pay homage to 30s sci-fi no one really cares about.

I'm so sick of this Lucas bashing. He is incredibly talented and his unforgivable crime was growing older and not having the fire, drive, and hunger his younger self had. Instead he gave us good sound, amazing video games, all manner of extended universe fun, etc. Its just amazing the swipes people take at him. I noticed these people don't swipe at the Stones or Dylan for producing lack luster content in their golden years. Funny how that works. Hell hath no fury like a nerd scorned...

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that point was completely lost on the OP. As far as lack of taste is concerned, people need to be more self critical and understand their limits. I'm a good engineer, but not so great designer, so it's a lot more cost effective for me to find a good designer to work with.

Site does not render well on the iPad and a really poor choice of fonts for the title were what lost me. Never criticize condem or complain, people in glass houses, well.. I'm not trying to be overly negative I'm just pointing out a few things I noticed *palmslap bad Kenrik.

It's pretty awful on a desktop, too. Here's what I see on my 1280x1024 screen with a browser taking up nearly all of that vertical space:

http://imgur.com/Z6aeQ

Where's the content?

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that point was completely lost on the OP. As far as lack of taste is concerned, people need to be more self critical and understand their limits. I'm a good engineer, but not so great designer, so it's a lot more cost effective for me to find a good designer to work with.

I agree and might go so far as to say the transitions were in good taste. "Taste" seems to me like a fairly generic word that can be easily misused. To me, taste implies consistency with tradition as well as good design, etc., but the OP seems to think that taste is directly synonymous with good design. If he really wanted to use an example of bad taste from the new Star Wars movies, it seems like everything Jar Jar…

How do you feel taste is different from good design?

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#18
'Blaring messages about sales, quickly spoken copy, and flashing graphics are not going to make anyone look fondly on your brand...Rewrite your script. Never use phrases like “4 easy steps.” '

Tell that to direct marketers who very deliberately create such advertisements. While your statement may have validity, I would argue a more important point:

"Taste doesn't matter if you lack sales."

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#19
post #18

'Blaring messages about sales, quickly spoken copy, and flashing graphics are not going to make anyone look fondly on your brand...Rewrite your script. Never use phrases like “4 easy steps.” ' Tell that to direct marketers who very deliberately create such advertisements. While your statement may have validity, I would argue a more important point: "Taste doesn't matter if you lack sales."

"Taste doesn't matter if you lack sales."

A lot of things don't matter if you lack sales. And I should say that good taste is certainly not a prerequisite to sales.

Re: Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

#20

"If you watch the newer Star Wars movies pay attention to the transitions near the end. When they are switching between each of the battle scenes they use Powerpoint style transitions. Dissolve, blinds, swipe. It’s an amateur effect in a movie that is otherwise very technically difficult and visually impressive. The skill is there, but taste is lacking." I'm sure the use of dissolves and wipes in the newer Star Wars…

That was my first thought and you're totally right but lets not miss the point here. Let's just assume the author didn't know this about the Star Wars franchise and let it go. I'm glad people brought it up though because I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I couldn't let it go either.

Despite this mistake I'm the post his point still stands. People learn all these skills but fail to understand when to properly use them. A lot of visual design tools like Photoshop have the ability to let you create incredibly complex, technically challenging works but just because you can doesn't mean you should.

This seems like a newbie mistake. Newbie learns cool new thing and them uses it everywhere because he can. Usually the cool new thing is more difficult and complex than other things newbie knows and somehow people begin to think harder is better.

We're essentially talking about how to use tools. As you fill your toolbox with new tools it's important to remember that every tool has its place and just because you've added a more powerful tool to your box it doesn't mean that from now on that tool should be used in lew of the others. If that were the case then you'd only need one tool. Each time you got a new more powerful tool you'd throw away your old ones and that's exactly what happens a lot of times.

I think that phase passes for most of us though and I don't think it's taste that makes people do this too. Rather than taste being the issue I believe it's a matter of skill. Learning how to use more complex and powerful tools is a good skill but an often overlooked skill is learning how all those tools work in concert and knowing when to use which combination. People who work in design especially usually have good taste to begin with, so it isn't taste that's lacking. Instead they're just so enamoured with their growth that they lose the forest for the trees whenever they level up.

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