Good design may seem strange
Summary
- Good design may seem to be unusual or counterintuitive
Details
- Often, good design may go against the normal way we do things
- Relativity sounded strange when Einstein frist thought of it.
References
Quotes
GOOD DESIGN IS OFTEN STRANGE. Some of the very best work has an uncanny quality: Euler's Formula, Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow, the SR-71, Lisp. They're not just beautiful, but strangely beautiful.
I'm not sure why. It may just be my own stupidity. A can opener must seem miraculous to a dog. Maybe if I were smart enough it would seem the most natural thing in the world that eiπ = -1. It is after all necessarily true.
Most of the qualities I've mentioned are things that can be cultivated, but I don't think it works to cultivate strangeness. The best you can do is not squash it if it starts to appear. Einstein didn't try to make relativity strange. He tried to make it true, and the truth turned out to be strange.
At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all to develop a personal style. But if you just try to make good things, you'll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as each person walks in a distinctive way. Michelangelo was not trying to paint like Michelangelo. He was just trying to paint well; he couldn't help painting like Michelangelo.