Principles of Art, Design, and Decoration

Published on May 12, 2007 (updated Aug 14, 2022), filed under design, art. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

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Much thinking about design has led me to the conclusion that defining the terms art, design, and decoration can be pretty simple. Outlining their principles, at least. Simpler than I thought in school (“what is art?”), and also simpler than I thought in earlier years.

Art:

Art hides. Art has a meaning, and it hides it, on purpose. Art delivers a message, and that message is hidden, on purpose. It is an art to create art. Art is unusable, by definition.

Design:

Design reveals. Design reveals meaning, design reveals function, design reveals a message. Bad design does the opposite: It obscures, it hides. The reason why that almost never makes bad design art is that the subject is supposed to be revealed.

Decoration:

Anything else that doesn’t have meaning is decoration, at most. Ask an artist what they want to achieve with their art piece—if they can’t tell (well, maybe they won’t tell), they’re a decorator, not an artist. Ask a designer why their design works—if they can’t tell, they’re probably a (lucky) decorator, not a designer. Decoration is sometimes appealing, but it doesn’t transport anything.

These definitions are simplified, sure, so they’re rather principles or attributes of art, design, and decoration. They rely on other definitions, like “meaning.” They also ignore certain factors like audience, context, and emotion. However, they seem to hold true often enough to be considered principles. I smell some confirmation bias, but that has been my observation.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Interpret charitably but be critical—and share feedback and advice that makes my work better.)