What is good taste, good design and how to be creative
Posted by Kathleen Fasanella on Oct 16, 2008 at 3:17 pm / Design, Slavery or Bravery / Trackback
First a side jaunt. I’ve tried writing this entry for several years with the usual result of having to wipe the spittle of an extended rant off the screen of the monitor -and end up with no post for my bother. The thing is, when people tell me “you’re so creative”, I cringe. If people describe me as an artist, I visibly wince*. This is rarely the compliment they’ve intended it to be.
If someone is creative, it is because they are skilled. Becoming skilled was a lot of hard work, study and dedication and it is annoying when people confuse skill with creativity. Any second grader can come up an idea; ideas are a dime a pallet. Creativity is innate, but skills are acquired through long years of practice, trial and error and they cost. Frankly, when the average person describes another as creative, the first party is rarely qualified to understand the depth of skill involved so they cannot see where skills end and creativity begins. As such, it could be said that being called creative is an insult or minimally, deprecatory of skills when the speaker is usually trying to convey exactly the opposite. Really, how many times have you seen a highly skilled person who wasn’t creative*? Creativity does not beget mastery but mastery begets creativity.
Let’s start with Paul Graham’s radical idea that good design isn’t a matter of taste:
If you mention taste nowadays, a lot of people will tell you that “taste is subjective.” They believe this because it really feels that way to them. When they like something, they have no idea why. It could be because it’s beautiful, or because their mother had one, or because they saw a movie star with one in a magazine, or because they know it’s expensive. Their thoughts are a tangle of unexamined impulses. Saying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it’s not true. You feel this when you start to design things.
Good design is hard…Whatever job people do, they naturally want to do better. Football players like to win games. CEOs like to increase earnings. It’s a matter of pride, and a real pleasure, to get better at your job. But if your job is to design things, and there is no such thing as beauty, then there is no way to get better at your job. If taste is just personal preference, then everyone’s is already perfect: you like whatever you like, and that’s it.
If good design boils down to personal taste preferences or matters of opinion, it means there’s no way to get better at what you do. So why try? How depressing. Put in this context, you realize this cannot be true so how do you get better? Again, Paul Graham says you must copy; specifically, other than to copy what you like, you must:
Be careful to copy what makes them good, rather than their flaws. It’s easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they’re easier to see, and of course easier to copy too. For example, most painters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used brownish colors. They were imitating the great painters of the Renaissance, whose paintings by that time were brown with dirt. Those paintings have since been cleaned, revealing brilliant colors; their imitators are of course still brown.
The reality is, people who are unskilled are not very creative. Their work is compromised on two levels, poor execution and limited imagination. One does not have the ability to “create” a more complex design because one cannot imagine how to make it. How many designers limit their designs to only those elements they have mastered? Perhaps paradoxically, copying also does not mean one cannot be creative. Previously I’d written (in the context of designer’s copyrights):
Young designers … are more likely to copy their predecessors than to have their own designs usurped. It is rarely the big bad pirate manufacturer copying a start up but the opposite. Throughout history, the concept of “copy till you catch up” has served as a nurturing, exploratory stage of a designer’s career. You’re too young to have matured as an artist. How can you find your own vibe unless you’ve experimented with examples developed by the masters?
So what do you do to be more creative? Again paradoxically, you copy, the seeming antithesis of creativity. You copy until you catch up. Arguably, copying -in theory and practice- is the best way to acquire skills. The fact is, skilled people are more creative. Skilled = creative. So how do you become skilled? You copy what is good. Unfortunately, many people copy flaws, the obvious or copy a flawed process. You cannot match or surpass the masters unless you attempt to match their results.
[At this point I find the other reason I never published this entry is that I've never been able to bear leaving out more quotes from Paul Graham. You will never regret reading his explanations of what good design is, appropriate for everyone from computer programmers to fashion designers.]
Summary:
Luckily for you, you’re not born with a fixed set of crayola crayon creativity. It’s not like IQ or height or eye color. It is not fixed but developed through integrity of effort. I suppose that can be unlucky too in that being creative alone doesn’t get you off the hook. Were it possible, coming into ideas would be a lot less work. You’d just sit and ponder, sketching dreamily in the air. But when has something truly wonderful and magnificent -creative- not been a lot of work? I think your answer is there.
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Related previous entry:
How to be creative
*Note: I’ve written a companion piece to this called Creativity is over rated but it’s gated because many will likely find it offensive. There are very few artists, truly. That’s not to say there are not people who describe themselves as artists and may even sell a few pieces but few transcend the category. Artist, like so many other terms these days, is over used. If you really are an artist, meaning you are wise, emotionally intact and introspective, you will relate to it, it won’t threaten you. If you’re someone who is infatuated with the aura of “being an artist” in the ways that many are in love with the aura of being a designer, you’ll likely never speak to me again. I will release the password upon request.
12 Responses to “What is good taste, good design and how to be creative”
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October 16th, 2008
3:55 pm
I find this very interesting because I would describe myself not as creative but as skilled. I know that technically I am very strong - accurate, and careful and painstaking to make sure things I make are technically as good as can be. I don’t think of myself as creative at all, because I find it hard to come up with designs of my own, and to use colour well. I hate it when you read about someone inspirational in fashion and find out that their mother was an artist and their father a designer etc. because it seems like there’s no hope for ‘non artistic’ types like me - my ancestors were all scientific types. I want to read about a great designer who couldn’t draw to save their life and whose relatives were all terribly practical, then I’ll be inspired and hope that one day I can be what I think of as creative!
October 16th, 2008
9:29 pm
Hello Kathleen:
I heartily agree! I’m an enthusiastic home sewer and never know what to say when people tell me I’m creative. I usually burble something about being crafty, not creative, because I use sewing patterns and don’t make my own original designs.
Skills are required for creativity, but skills do not guarantee that creativity will follow.
I’d like to read your second post and promise not to foam at the mouth. May I have the password, please?
October 16th, 2008
10:56 pm
Barb - If you look at great artists like Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo — they were exceptional technicians first, and later artists. In general, we never see the hundreds of torn up sketches or piles of clay furiously pummeled back into a slurry that have led to the renowned pieces. In fashion, consider Balenciaga, Dior, Vionett, Chanel … all designers with strong technical backgrounds, and certainly not uniquely from artistic families (or even scientific families).
It’s very, very easy for us to compare ourselves to the most outstanding members of our respective professions, and come up lacking — it’s much harder to look at ourselves, and see how far we’ve traveled, and that there are those who look up to us as their unreachable goal.
October 17th, 2008
7:16 am
Thank you so much for this article!!!! My friends have never understood why I get so upset to hear “you are so creative” when they see what I do for my career. I think it is like saying to Michael Phelps “you’re so tall” after he wins a medal. While his height is certainly an asset, it totally disrespects all the years of training and effort he invested to accomplish what he does.
I believe creativity is just a way of seeing details and using the right side of the brain. Maybe a way of thinking too. Some people are more naturally inclined toward this, others need to learn to develope it. It has nothing to do with skill however. Even if you are naturally inclined toward using the right brain, it will not take you very far if you do not have the training and experience to know what to look for. You need years of training and experience to know what you are seeing, to know why the fabric drapes beautifully and the colors “feel right” and the collar sits just so, etc. Natural creativity may give you a leg up on those without it, but more likely it is just the reason you were drawn to that career in the first place. I want respect for what I have worked years to accomplish, not have it attributed to something I was born with.
October 17th, 2008
7:20 pm
I’ve long felt that our current culture lacks respect and appreciation for good craftsmanship.
And I grit my teeth and want to scream every time I see praise for “transgressive” artists (though they soil the word by their existence), whose “works” resemble nothing so much as the results of a toddler throwing a tantrum in a trash pile.
I suppose that the fashion equivalent are the designers who, instead of clothing a woman beautifully and fittingly for a given activity rely on the supposed shock value of exposing her flesh and emphasizing, in the most degrading way, her sexuality (which, due to the sheer awfulness of the “design” often ends up making her either seem either neutered or actively repulsive rather than desirable).
Hurray for taste! Hurray for beauty! Hurray for fitness of purpose, for elegance of design, and for daring to embrace the search for truth as we do the work of the day.
October 18th, 2008
6:29 am
I’ve been thinking about this some more.
I agree with 3KillerBs about that the sort of modern art. It leaves me completely unmoved, probably because I can’t see the exercise of skill in it. Artistic vision comes to nothing without the technical skills and discipline to express that vision. I value both the artistic vision and technical skills that are used to express it.
At a wedding, I once met a jeweller who was wearing several million dollars worth of jewelery that he had made. He sparkled and clanked and glittered gorgeously with his stunning original designs - I was quite overwhelmed by it. I said to him “I know nothing about art but I understand craftsmanship and your work is beautiful.” He was delighted. It was the truest and highest compliment that I could give him. And he complimented me on the outfit I was wearing, which I had sewn. He mentionned both the design and the techniques I had used to make it - he knew very well that skills and creativity go together.
Creativity is also expressed in the creation of practical ie non-artistic objects. I’ve seen elegant creative design in railroad maintenance equipment, aircraft propellors, scissor handles, roof trusses, vacuum cleaners. The sheer ingenuity of people delights me - and you can see it everywhere if your eye is tuned for it.
I am a technical writer and I find the writing of software documentation to be very creative, even though the documentation serves a practical purpose rather than an artistic one. This kind of writing has restrictions that are imposed by the purpose of the document, the needs of the reader, the conventions of technical writing, the delivery medium, and many others. It takes great creativity to remain within those restrictions and write documentation that is clear, simple, unambiguous and (I hope) elegant.
People who work in non-technical fields might be unaware that technical work is often creative as well as practical.
October 18th, 2008
11:13 pm
I’ve resented being called “an artist” for so long. In my own opinion, being artistic was synonym with being volatile, always spontaneous, fearless and overly sensitive. Things I never felt were “me”.
Well, a good friend of mine pointed out 2 years ago that there are MANY types of artistry. That one can be a cartesian artist, and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of that arty part of me.
Lots of us tend to put people - and ourselves - in rigid compartments, cataloguing persons from their job descriptions, looks or bank accounts… Craftsmanship, fit and purpose are sadly seldom recognized by the masses, but so very important in the end. I’m not as eloquent in English as others were here before me, but I share Juliette’s and 3KillerBs’ views wholeheartedly.
October 19th, 2008
4:41 am
How serendipitous.
Waiting for me on the kitchen table this morning was a 60 yr old book on embroidery that my daughter retrieved from someone else’s trash pile. The author had this to say on “How to Become a Better Designer”:
“Only by actually using a specific thread for an individual stitch can one be sure of its final effect. Only by playing with making designs can one find out why certain shapes look well together and how to combine them for the most pleasing result. Skill is in direct proportion to the amount of exercise it gets.”
October 20th, 2008
5:32 am
Sonia, You would have enjoyed an article I read last year. Sadly I cannot remember what publication it was in, but it was about respect for craftsmen. Tha author was a historian and he predicted that another generation or two from now the craftsmen of the world would become one of the most respected professions. His theory was based on the idea that as we come to rely more and more on computers there will be fewer people who understand how actually make things with their hands. Those who continue to pursure those skills will be much more highly paid and needed than they ever have before. Wouldn’t be great if we could live to see that day?
October 20th, 2008
5:25 pm
[...] This post on one of my favorite blogs, Fashion Incubator, touches on something that I think relates well to this. Creativity is not skill, and often the two get interchanged. These experimenters and technologies are more creative than many people who draw pretty pictures. I see this all the time - artists who create beautiful things, but are unwilling to push the boundaries and do something new, only something more skillful. [...]
October 20th, 2008
5:37 pm
How fortunate for me that you chose to wipe this off your screen for years, because it couldn’t have come at a better time. Thank you.
PS. get ready to come to LA, the show’s in previews :))
October 20th, 2008
9:08 pm
people who work with their minds and their hands are artisans, not artists.
DaVinci was more than an artist too.
It’s hard for the average person to notice the distinctions between the two, unless you know how long it takes to build any given skill. I agree, no skill is a ‘gift’ unless you’re looking from the outside in.