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The Substance of Style 281

Posted by timothy from the clean-lines dept.
Cory R writes "Although many of us may hate to admit it, aesthetics matter even to hard-headed techies. Our software is skinnable, our email is filled with HTML, and our cases glow with colorful lights. Graphic design is pervasive and expected. Programming style is debated endlessly and many of us lust after Apple hardware which can command a premium price in part because of its styling. The age of aesthetics is here and in The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness, Virginia Postrel explains where it came from and what it means." Read on for the rest of Cory's review.
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness
author Virginia Postrel
pages 237
publisher HarperCollins
rating 8.5
reviewer Cory R.
ISBN 0060186321
summary Postrel says this is an age of aesthetics. Style is important because it has genuine value. Functionality and style may be equally important.
Postrel points out:
"Those old sci-fi movies were wrong. the 21st century doesn't look at all the way they said it would. We citizens of the future aren't wearing conformist jumpsuits, living in utilitarian high-rises, or getting our food in the form of dreary-looking pills. On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world. We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities."

Postrel's writing is easy to read and the text flows effortlessly. Her opening chapter ("The Aesthetic Imperative") describes how manufacturers and other businesses cannot escape style issues. Starbucks is a recurring example: she says "Curmudgeons may grouse about the price of its coffee, but Starbucks isn't just selling beverages. It's delivering a multisensory aesthetic experience, for which customers are willing to pay several times what coffee costs at a purely functional Formica-and-linoleum coffee shop." In a crowded and incredibly competitive marketplace, style is one of the few ways to differentiate yourself.

In chapter two, "The Rise of Look and Feel," Postrel describes the changing role of aesthetics over the past century. She discusses the rise of mass production, 1930's trends of streamlining everything (why should a toaster be aerodynamic?), wartime utilitarianism, and businesses' changing emphasis on style. Much of this, she says, was spurred by the rural-to-urban population shift. As cities grew, niche markets became concentrated enough that businesses could cater to them. Markets fragmented and elements of niche styles were adopted and transformed by the mainstream.

Chapter three ("Surface and Substance") looks at the power of pretty surfaces. The discussion ranges from Hilary Clinton's hair, to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in 2001. Do surfaces have genuine value? Postrel definitely thinks so.

The fourth chapter ("Meaningful Looks") studies the messages that can be conveyed by aesthetics. "Identity is the meaning of surface," Postrel says. "Before we say anything with words, we declare ourselves through look and feel: Here I am. I'm like this. I'm not like that. I associate with these others. I don't associate with those." Look at punk rockers for a great example: at the same time punks are rebelling against society, they are conforming to tenets and garb of their sub culture.

Chapter five ("The Boundary of Style") explores the impact of aesthetic choices on those around you. Much of the chapter deals with architectural issues and building codes or deed restrictions. I think it is one of the more balanced chapters and, as someone who has just bought his first home in a deed-restricted community, had a lot of material that I found very interesting. By the end of the chapter, I disliked deed restrictions even more.

The final chapter is called "Smart and Pretty." It revolves around the idea that "pretty or smart" is a false dichotomy. Making things beautiful or interesting is as important as making them work. Postrel goes one step further and cites the work of usability guru Donald Norman, who argues that attractive things actually work better. I have a hard time explaining it, but I agree. Hammering out text on my iMac is a different experience than doing the same on my Windows or Linux box. The Apple machine oozes with creativity. Maybe it's contagious?

Postrel's argument for the value of aesthetics is definitely one-sided, but I wouldn't go so far as to call her a cheerleader. Her logic is solid, intertwined, and backed up with thirty-two pages of notes at the end of the book. The flaw in the book lies in the arguments she doesn't make -- specifically, she doesn't spend much time on dealing with misleading surfaces (facades). For a few pages she talks about people who dress not for who they are, but for who they aspire to be. I would have liked to see more about those who display whatever it is they think you want to see. Politicians do this for a living.

Unless you belong to the adornment-is-for-fools camp, you will enjoy this book. Its subject is one that I have never devoted much thought to, but after reading The Substance of Style, I can't help but be more critical of the surfaces around me and I can better appreciate the ones that are well designed.

You can purchase The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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The Substance of Style More

The Substance of Style

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  • HTML email == spam (for me at least) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FattMattP ( 86246 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @11:46AM (#7230518) Homepage
    our email is filled with HTML
    Only the spam, my friend. Only the spam.
    • When I see it in email, HTML = hate mail
    • Multi-part MIME, baby. You should just set your email client to view the plain text version and ignore the HTML version.


      Generally HTML-only email is spam-ish, though unfortunately, some websites generate it for their automated account systems and the like, because it's easier to generate than multi-part MIME. So you can't nuke HTML email indiscriminately. Just make sure your spam-filtering program assigns it a sufficiently negative score.

      • Multi-part MIME, baby. You should just set your email client to view the plain text version and ignore the HTML version.

        Why waste bandwidth with it in the first place?

        So you can't nuke HTML email indiscriminately.

        The hell I can't.

  • 1) Our software is skinnable -- yes
    2) our email is filled with HTML -- umm, no.....just the crap advertisements
    3) our cases glow with colorful lights -- yes, the more the better
    • well, my powerbook glows but it's because I am typing it in the dark which the keyboard detected and adjusted itself accordingly...
      Style is not much without utility. IMHO, of course.
    • If the HTML in those "crap advertisements" wasn't more effective at selling products, do you think it would still be used?
    • Personally, I consider ALL of those to be examples of bad aesthetics and design.
      1. Skinnable software is often an excuse for the default appearance to suck and often creates hundreds of pretty, but unusable interfaces.
      2. HTML email is waste of space and is often extremely ugly -- especially in the hands of commercial companies.
      3. I've only seen a few cases with light mods that didn't look like ass.

      (Hint: Throwing cold cathode light onto your exposed circuit boards is at about as cool as a riced-out Honda with f

    • 1. From a user interface perspective, I think skins are a horrible idea.
      2. Check. HTML email is a curse.
      2. No, my case is a plain gray box, and I like it that way.
    • I love all the little /.-assholes who have to disagree with shit just because THEY don't buy into it.

      I'm not hammering on you, per se. Most of the guys responding to you, however....

      1. YOU might not like skinnable software, but it's the 'in' thing and whether you like it or not, it's not going away.

      2. HTML email that YOU receive might all be spam, or might waste too much space, but joe sixpack and ed executive love it.

      3. Cold cathodes might be "old news" now, but only if you've seen a few dozen. Don't
  • whether in clothes or computers, it seemd that i am still always out of style. what we really need is a book on how to keep everything in style...that would be useful. that way i will know that my computer doesnt look cool enough and my shirt doesnt fit right....and thus explains why i dont have a girlfriend....

    xao

  • Another book about style (Score:5, Insightful)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @11:52AM (#7230584) Homepage Journal
    Strunk and White's Elements of Style addresses the type of verbose writing used in this book review.

    "Avoid needless words."

  • when I started to read the story I couldn't help but think of writing style = "Jon Katz".

  • Since the dawn of civlization man has always lusted after the shiny pretty things over the dull simple things.

    I'm thinking back in the 70's people still handed over cash for the rhinestone covered clogs and passed on the plain leather ones whenever possible.

    Maybe a more interesting study would be in the psychology of why we pick the stylish clear box over the beige one? Are we collecting pretty objects to attract mates? If so, I should have bought that new Mac!

    I'm thinking it's more the case that the a
  • The power led for my case is so powerful it lights up the entire room. I thought it was so cool till I shut of the lights and realized I couldn't sleep. Looking directly at the led is dangerous enough, but to top it off the reflection from my closet mirror aims directly at my bed. Torn by the desire to get both sleep and leave my computer running at all times I modded my case with a piece of electrical tape and finally fell asleep.
  • This is the name of a book that goes into more depth in an area that apparently this book just touches on in Chapter four. It sounds like she just brushes up against a very complex idea that underlines all notions of style which is the interaction between style and culture.
    And aesthetics is a really loaded word. You have to wonder about an author who throws around terms like "aesthetics" without establishing some very strict historical definitions of what that means in the context of the work at hand
  • Of course the link to purchase the book is a referral link. I mean, god forbid Slashdot have a book review and not have the chance to make any money off of it. How about we call it what it really is, a "book advertisement".

  • Graphic Design Means Selling Out (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Malicious ( 567158 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @12:07PM (#7230741)
    When I worked for a graphic design company, I was perpetually plagued by the words 'Can you make it look more 3d?'
    There was no room for creativity or real design. Sadly, the motivating factor in graphic design isn't to push the boundaries, it's to look like everone else.
    • Just like any profession, the good designers tend to be the ones who try harder. Working with many designers in the studio for years taught me that the best ones had a) a vision for what the final piece would look like and b) the ability to communicate that vision to their artists/photogs/flash etc. The ones that came in with no ideas and expected me to create magic drove me *nuts*.

    • Re:Graphic Design Means Selling Out (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dasein ( 6110 ) * <tedc AT codebig DOT com> on Thursday October 16, 2003 @12:16PM (#7230850) Homepage Journal
      I've seens this as well. I find it hugely interesting that Microsoft has stayed away from the 2.5D trend. Check out the home page here for convenience [microsoft.com] Have you seen anything this plain come out of a customer review? I like simple. Simple means that a customer can get chages made to the website in almost no time.

      • Have you seen anything this plain come out of a customer review?

        I believe that the basic idea is that a gaudy style has to change frequently or appear dated, whereas a plainer style need not. Alternately, the OS and its associated objects (like websites) shouldn't grab your attention, they should fade into the background and allow you to do your work.

    • There was no room for creativity or real design

      Real design is the ability to work within customer constraints while simultaneously expressing your individual creative spirit.

  • The gurus of style live at Redmond (Score:3, Funny)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @12:09PM (#7230764) Journal
    You can't beat the default Tellytubbies style with which Windows XP comes. Its deep primary colors shout out profundity while its oversized iconography makes a bold statement that few can ignore. It looks so good I can't bear to turn off my PC. I leave it switched on with the monitor standing next to my stylish Barney dinosaur.
  • Appearance does matter, but your list of stuff doesn't apply to me.

    I don't write skinnable apps, and I don't use that feature if they are. My email doesn't have HTML, and I've trained most to not bother sending me that crap.
    Colourful lights on computers are just dumb, currently all my computers are backwards under the desk so it was easier to plug the cables in.

    I just want a clear and effective appearance, not this gawdy crap people spit out.
    I use syntax highlighting in emacs and vim.
    My C runs thorugh ind
    • Skinnable apps are *the devil*.

      What I want is an endlessly customizable, CONSISTENT appearance across applications. With buttons as big as possible.

      Apps which use their own skins actively fight this.
  • You ever look around and see just how boring modern buildings are? How everything on your desk is a carbon-copy of everything on everyone else's desk? It sucks. It is dry and boring. We need style to spice things up and inspire us!

    • Gaudi got in a lot of trouble for designing and building the classics he created 100 years ago. He ignored the city planners and dared them to do something about it. Eventially his buildings became reason enough to visit some towns for their recignized beauty and sculpture. I'll bet they wouldn't let you create another one in those towns though.

      In other words, I encourage everyone to ignore as much as possible building codes (but understand why they are there, Gaudi's didn't design leaky roofs, unlike F

  • Frilly things like glowing computer cases are often just fads. They have no improvement on the performance of the machine, its purely for looks. Its kind of like the stupid purple downlights people used to install on their cars: cool when you were the only one, stupid when the jerk down the street got them. Its actually a marketers dream, since once dopey glow-in-the-dark computers have saturated the market, they will 'invent' some new, uber-cool design that everyone has to have, and the cycle will repeat.
    • You will note that Apple's designs have never included such things. I consider such import-racer aesthetics as those neon lights and see through windows to be the hallmark of people that just figured out that you can stop making cases as beige boxes. The people who knew that all along are making real style statements, that's why Apple makes waves.

      Oh, and I have never met an average Joe who likes the XP theme. In fact one thing they ask me when fixing their machine is "how do I turn that bullshit off". They

  • Coffee shop (Score:3)

    by wytcld ( 179112 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @12:16PM (#7230848) Homepage
    Starbucks isn't just selling beverages. It's delivering a multisensory aesthetic experience, for which customers are willing to pay several times what coffee costs at a purely functional Formica-and-linoleum coffee shop.

    - a statement by someone who has not experienced the superior aesthetics of the best of the old Formica-and-linoleum coffee shops, and of someone who has not experienced the superior aesthetics of a good espresso in the classic sort of Italian coffee shop that Starbucks is a pale immitation of. Starbucks to its credit usually has coffee that's worth more than what the diner this morning sold me for a dollar. Their beans are much better, and cost them twice as much, so of course the coffee they sell costs twice as much too - and the diner makes profit because it also expects most customers to buy food. But the experience of their shops is basically anti-aesthetic, or anaesthetic, numbing. There is no real design there, no real place, just a simulacrum. While they know enough to try to make a pomo virtue of this, it's lame. Still, when in a neighborhood without real Italian espresso, at least the coffee works.
    • I'd go even farther than that -- starbucks is certainly a good example of the increasing corporate awareness of style, but it clearly illustrates how shallow and cynical that awareness is. It's full of very intentional design decisions that try to exploit people's desire to feel stylish or hip or cool or whatever, but it doesn't take a genius to notice the dreary sameness about it all, the attempts to sound `deep' or `funky' without saying anything even remotely controversial -- or the "(tm) starbucks" pla
  • I think the reason people like Starbucks so much has (almost)nothing to do with aesthetics. Starbucks sells pretty fuckin' good coffee. I don't know if it's worth $5, but it's pretty fuckin' good.

    • You're out of your mind. Starbucks coffee is to coffee as American beer is to beer. Sure there are acquired tastes and taste is too damned subjective to be anything but troll fodder, but if Starbucks is not drowning their coffee in sugar and milk and every other flavor but coffee, they're sticking poofs of whipped cream on top and making it into some sort of performance art piece. I drink coffee for caffeine or for the coffee taste, not for some little brat faced little twerp to snicker when I pronounce mac
    • "Pretty fuckin' good coffee" isn't aesthetically pleasing? I beg to differ: a really GOOD cup of coffee transcends whatever container it's poured in, which is why Starbucks can get around selling a paper cup full of it for five bucks. (On that last point, I do agree... I dunno if it's worth $5 ;-)

      Too Much Coffee Man [tmcm.com]

    • Starbucks coffee is far better than any drip coffee. But Starbucks can't hold a candle to the average Seattle cafe. And the average Seattle Latte is nothing compared to a Latte picked at random from New Orleans.
  • ...our cases glow with colorful lights...

    Mine doesn't, you dork.

    Who the fuck has enough time on their hands to put damn *colored lights* in their PC?

  • At least I found one three word expression in that article I could agree with.

    In fact, I had an original fat Mac once and I gradually grew to hate the interface. Am I the only person around who cares more about the content area of what I'm trying to work on than the glitzy frame around it?

    The Mac window model gives you all kinds of controls over the window *frame*. What I wanted was a quick way to indicate "I need to see this patch of text here and that patch of text there on the screen at the same time

  • Industrial and graphic design are a very non-trivial part of our economy and will never die out as culture evolves. I can't wait until nostalgic TV shows in thirty years feature women with capri pants and those flipped out hair cuts. If you think we laugh at afros and bellbottoms today...you just wait!
  • I find it ironic that an article about substance over style has over 137 comments to it, but every one of them is below my (relatively lax) threshold level. What gives? No substance?
    • This has been happening to me for the past few days on slashdot. Seems +4 doesnt yield any comments on stories anymore. Maybe our slashdot overlords are toying with the slashcode again, maybe moderators just gave up, either way I've set my default threshold to +2.

      Oh, and whats with the 500 errors all the time now? Cant go to a page without having to refresh it at least once.

  • Is this really a new trend? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jjoyce ( 4103 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @12:56PM (#7231319)
    I haven't read the book, but the first thing that struck me was the claim that we have entered some kind of "age" of aesthetics. I don't think that that is the case at all. Humans have certainly not been subsisting on the crudest of tools or the simplest things that would work. Take a glance at medieval weaponry and you'll see that even weapons -- objects used essentially for their utility -- portray a tremendous sense of style on the part of their owners and craftsmen. Throughout human history, objects that not only have had a functional purpose, but also appeal to the eye, have always been the mark of the elite and sophisticated. The difference is, I think, that now is the age of the pretty and useful object being available to the middle and lower socioeconomic classes.

  • Postrel desperate to reinvent herself (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @01:06PM (#7231412)
    I have been following her writings for years - from her uber-pro-capitalism/libertarian puff-piece "The Future and Its Enemies" to this. She wants to do well but is too focused on making a momentous statement.

    Sorry Virginia, you are not a guru.

    • I read the book last month and thought she missed her chance on writing a excellent essay by publishing a vacuous book. The quote from it Corey took is about the only observation in 200 pages I found noteworthy. While they're is plenty of room for analysis of the relationship between design and commerce, a better writer is needed than Postrel. And ironically, the book's dust jacket is very poorly designed.
  • On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world. We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities

    Maybe so, but Unix guys like me want my tools to WORK!. Take the building a house analogy. When you walk into a finished home, it's the paint and fabrics you notice. But that house was built in the rain and cold by framers and drywallers who use simple, ugly tools like hammers, drills an

    • But that house was built in the rain and cold by framers and drywallers who use simple, ugly tools like hammers, drills and saws.

      How dare you call hammers, drills and saws simple and ugly, you insensitive clod!

      (clutching my Bosch, Porter Cable, and Milwaukee power tools)

      Seriously, though, many geeks I know really enjoy construction. I know I do. It's very nice to have quality tools and be able to build stuff. I think that this is one of the marks of a real engineer -- we like to create. Not jus

  • As an artist and a programmer, I'm always fascinated by this sort of thing. I think people who have skills in both have a good edge, and not just for the obvious reasons like "we can make cool Doom characters."

    I think there's alot of overlap. We typically think asthetics=subjective programming=objective, but there's alot of cross-over, maybe to the point where they are actually very similar. For example, any language generally provides many different ways of doing a task. The "beautiful" way is the o
  • Although many of us may hate to admit it, aesthetics matter even to hard-headed techies. Our software is skinnable,

    I'm not sure that colorizing my gcc output counts as skinning.

    our email is filled with HTML

    Not in pine, it's not. Detecting HTML is, in any event, a nearly 100% certain way of rejecting spam. No individual with anything worth saying is saying it in HTML emails.

    and our cases glow with colorful lights.

    Pfaw. The power and drive activity lights are indeed colorful, but adding more would o
  • It seems this review [reference.com] is mostly synopsis [reference.com].

    I guess I hope for an informed, opinionated discussion of the book's material and its value, rather than a chapter summary.
  • getting our food in the form of dreary-looking pills

    Mmmmm...Soylent Green.

  • Our software is skinnable, our email is filled with HTML, and our cases glow with colorful lights.

    Skinnable software is often a pain to use ("Whenever a programmer thinks, 'Hey, skins, what a cool idea', their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls." [jwz.org]) HTML email (as was previosuly pointed-out) is almost always spam, and case mods are for the silliest of nerds.

  • Is an abomination. I do *not* use HTML in e-mail, and I don't *read* e-mail with HTML.

    I hate when people make assumptions about what "everyone" does. Specially when they are wrong. :-)
  • but Starbucks isn't just selling beverages. It's delivering a multisensory aesthetic experience,

    Oh please...people pay Starbucks' exorbitant prices because that's what's in. It's about all about image. It's all about "how do others see me, and how can I make myself look cool?" It's the plastic, superficial existence that we've adopted as part of our day-to-day lives, that stresses cool over things that matter, like integrity, legitimate achievement, and character. While I might be inclined to believe that
  • "and many of us lust after Apple hardware which can command a premium price in part because of its styling."

    I can't speak for anyone else. But I'll tell you why I love the "Apple Style". Understatement. In a Calvin Kline 3 button suit kinda way. Clean lines, no exaggertaions.

    I'm not an Apple user, but I can't tell you how strong the urge is to stuff my Linux box components into one of those new G5 cases.

    The current wave of Chenbro/Chenming/Enermax/(fill in your fav windowed, SUPER BRIGHT RETINA BURNING
  • James Dyson once said something to the effect of, "people imagine the designer as the guy in a salmon-coloured shirt who comes in at the end and says 'put fins on it.' It's not like that--good products come from good design, which goes hand in hand with good engineering from the ground up."

    The more I hear about style as a separate field, or as something different from form function and execution, the more I think that someone has missed the point. Style can't be separated from the product itself. Talking a

  • AESTHETICS of STYLE? Try CORRUPTION of GREED (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kazoo the Clown ( 644526 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @03:35PM (#7233354)

    You're looking at the downside of the "invisible hand" here, methinks.

    Take anything by the Sharper Image for example. Their corporate motto is apparently "Style over Substance", though they are only one of the most blatant. A specifically good example would be their "Ionic Breeze." Selling points? Quieter than HEPA filters (that's because HEPA filters actually DO something). Empty BOXES are quiet too, and pollute your air less. Standardized tests show the Ionic Breeze's ability to remove airborne particles to be almost negligible. Tests also show it doesn't trap the particles it does catch very well such that they can be re-introduced to the environment. It produces levels of the oxidant gas ozone that accumulate over time, reportedly less than 0.05 ppm after 24 hours, but what after 48? The EPA's safe limit is 0.08, are you sure your ventilation is sufficient to keep it below that level if you have it on all the time? Do you trust the EPA's limit as being actually safe? (they dropped it to 0.08 from 0.12 in 1997 as apparently, 0.12 wasn't good enough). And what does it matter if the darn thing doesn't even remove dust and germs out of your environment worth a darn, because most dust and germs are not airborne? Oh, but it LOOKS SO SEXY.

    There are countless products that people buy not because they are tuned into the brilliant aesthetics, but because the intimidation value of the brilliant marketing campaigns that convince them that if they don't have the product, they're deprived. That they need it to shallowly show off they have good taste when they really have no taste at all except that which was sold to them.

  • My comments:

    Page after page of mindless drivel. Incoherent ramblings with little unifying theme or compelling conclusion. The effort required to pick out the few useful bits makes reading the whole thing an exercise in futility. In total, a colossal waste of time.

    Virginia Postrel's book however is quite good.

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