The Complexities of Style
Here is another example of the stylists aesthetic of complexity–as opposed to the designer’s philosophy of simplicity (check out Stylists != Designers).
This is a gorgeous diagram, filled with nuanced shadings, a subtle and tasteful color palette (I especially like the orange and green combination), captivating visual patterns, and seductive symetries. Its also an excersize is specious visual meaninglessness and obfuscating info-decoration. What does this thing mean?!
Oh, and it has 14 different rolleover states that magnify and highlight different areas with explosions of seeming information. Information like “[t]here is a vacuum of solid evidence into which can rush our most troublesome weaknesses as human decision-makers.” Yikes. Sounds heavy. And sounds a hell of a lot more complicated than its needs to be–which is exactly what the stylist’s aethetic of complexity is all about.
This diagram illustrates a basic design process, and is perhaps the most attractive, most complicated and least intelligeble representations of a design process I’ve ever seen.
I do love the irony of the company’s tag line: “The Art of Complex Problem Solving”
December 13th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Aesthetics vs. function! Looks too finished to be bottom-up; maybe a corporate dept could legislate this as the way forward This site http://www.senteco.com shows some great ways of bottom -up ways of capturing the knowledge of complex processes as they are built up by the participants who have to use them afterwards. It is the appearance of the diagrams (finished to unfinished) that invites or not people to particapate… use the building blocks to build pathways or delivering them as barriers!
December 13th, 2006 at 11:45 am
I’ve always found it interesting how polish seems to hinder conversation. When a sketch is too polished, too finished looking, the dialog seems to assume the design work closed.