Well said!

themadeshop:

I swear to god, if I see this stupid fucking bookshelf on another tumblr, design blog, or tweeted link I’m going to retire.*

No, don’t read your book case. That’s a stupid idea. It’s a stupid thing to think.

There is this confusingly popular trend for ‘clever’ design, where the ‘cleverness’ is no longer an intelligent and beautiful solution to a problem but instead simply a twee, self-referencing wink at itself and at you.

Like the camera-lens coffee mug. What real photographer would purchase and use that?

Or this “broken” coffee table? Is this funny? Should puns be used in the construction of furniture?

A speaker shaped like a quotation bubble?

Bookshelf wallpaper? I hate to say “really?”, but really?

Everything Urban Outfitters has designed (and/or stolen)?

Or these stupid fucking bracelets made to look like camera lens rings?

I could go on and on with these because I somehow can’t help myself from saving links to this stuff when I see it, but I realize no one wants to read a long rant and look at bad design using up moments of their finite lives. And, really, I don’t want to seem humorless, nor am I advocating sterile design that must be emphatically unaware of itself as an object.

But what about something like this Book Rest Lamp which I do like? Yes, it’s funny, because it sorta looks like a house, but the joke isn’t about itself nor is the visual pun the main point of its existence. It’s actually a useful object, it holds your book, and—even better—holds your place, and looks like it would actually be a pretty nice reading light. It’s novel and playful, but these qualities don’t overshadow its usefulness. Rather they seem to emerge from the utility naturally without feeling forced or trivial. It’s easy to imagine the designer setting out to solve a simple problem (a place to put a book, hold its place, and provide reading light) and partway through realizing (and enjoying) its resemblance to a house.

With all these other objects, it’s hard to imagine a similar design process occurring.

In that bookcase above whatever utility it might have is an afterthought to its punchline (for instance, try to imagine it filled with books—it’s somewhat telling that all the pictures of it getting passed around keep showing it empty. Update: one even shows it empty with a stack of books next to it (!) ). Same thing for the camera-lens coffee mug. It’s not that you are physically unable to drink coffee from it, or that it’s impossible to cram books into that bookshelf, but rather that these core functions are so clearly and carelessly inessential to their existence and surface appeal.

I’m not against cleverness, but I think I prefer things that are just good. Something that is ‘good’, like a good design or a good solution, simply does the job well and stays out of the way. Something that is ‘clever’, like a clever design or a clever solution, also does the job well generally, but it seems equally interested in you noticing how it did the job so well. And I think that’s the trait of ‘clever design’ that I find so cloying and off-putting.

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* Or, more likely, just write a rant-y post about it and then move on to enjoying all the really fantastic design in the world.