Function follows Beauty

Re-thinking functionality from the vantage point of beauty.

From the very beginning, beauty is considered to be one of the pillars of the
definition of design. Although designers tend to put higher value on concept or use, it would be hard to find any designer who claims to work hard to make something ugly or unnoticeable.

The notion of beauty resists an easy definition. Beauty is based on subjectivity, and thus it is hard to combine with rationality. It is this openness in its definition that makes beauty so interesting.

While beauty and function cohabit in every design proposal, they remain two disparate, almost opposite, elements. Beauty is linked with the physical representation of a project. It could be understood as a superfluous,
added element that does not increase its function.

This last term refers to the idea of use. It is a rational element that does not leave much space for interpretation. On the other hand, beauty is a fluctuating element that leads to imaginative thought through a system of interpretation. My proposal is based on this tension between function and beauty, between defined objectivity and fluctuating subjectivity.

My work is about defining function in the same way I would define beauty. I think of objects as catalysts for the imagination. Function becomes as open to appropriation and interpretation as beauty has always been.

Intriguing but curiously familiar shapes demonstrate that omnipresent subjectivity endures in the way the designer and the user/viewer deal with physical representation.