“Visual Aesthetics.” What is it anyways? Sometimes I know, other times I am lost in a fog of usability, visuals, function, lack of sleep, etc. Visually, visual aesthetics is a super weird word. Maybe it’s just the font I’m using…. didn’t we learn that typography is everything? Or wait, is usability everything? Based on our classes this semester, visual aesthetics is something just out of reach. No matter what I have created, someone, somewhere has an issue with visual aesthetics. I reach for it and grasp some cloudy form of it to put to use in my projects. I wouldn’t hesitate to say “visual aesthetics” makes all the difference. But then again what is it?
Anyways, after a semesters worth of turning the idea of “visual aesthetics” over in my mind, I have realized that the single most influential material that helped me comprehend “visual aesthetics” this semester was the “Thirty Conversations on Design” video with Pete Doctor. According to Doctor, visual Aesthetics boils down to is this: design makes us CARE. It is ideas, words, images, or information strategically thought out to make an audience accepting of information. Bad design discourages us from fighting through information overload to understand, purchase, or use well, everything.
There is no recipe for right and for wrong, but design helps us sort and order our world. Not only is design about what our eyes like, but it’s about clarity and context. Smart design is pleasing to the eye as well as functional. It is important to have an understanding of visual aesthetics when making interactive design because it is a guide for making anything user friendly.
I hope to continue my pursuit of the ever present, ever intangible concept of visual aesthetics, though in all honesty, I don’t think it is something attainable. Starting now, I want to image the concept as a guide and a goal but never something that can be perfected.
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