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Formulas for good design

Is there a mathematic equation for good design? A few articles from February tackle the relationship between beauty, math, science and design.

Exploring Logo Designs with Mathematica | Wolfram blog
The developers of Mathematica, a modeling and computational software, riffed on a few corporate logos in a recent blog post. While it's hard to understand their process without experience using Mathematica, it's certainly fun to view the transformations; the Mercedes Benz exercise is even animated on their demo site (you can view a web preview without downloading their software). It seems like a compelling way to quickly view variations on a geometric design—but only if you've got the formula to create it first.

Unlocking the secret of beautiful design with mathematics | Boston Globe

Collector Horace "Woody" Brock has good design down to a science: he believes there is an optimal and measurable amount of symmetry that determines aesthetic satisfaction. Brock explained his ideas to a skeptical Boston Globe reporter covering an exhibit of Brock's decorative arts collection on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the exhibit catalog actually includes an appendix of equations and graphs to illustrate Brock's theory.

My problem with Brock's theory might simply be one of semantics: I think "beauty" is subjective, but it's clear that there are mathematical patterns found in nature (and in the built world) classically considered pleasing and "natural." (I don't think beauty is necessarily naturally pleasing—take Stravinsky, for example.) Brock acknowledges that what he considers "good design" is intuitive—"You just sense it," he says, "that's how it's supposed to be"—so perhaps he means classically pleasing rather than beautiful.

Bonus: to see how Brock applies his ideas to both design and music, read his review of Roger Scruton's The Aesthetic of Music (and Scruton's rebuttal, too).

Core Principles: How science can inform a theory of design | Seed
What is MoMA curator Paola Antonelli doing writing a design column for science mag Seed? Antonelli uses her first column to explore what it means to "design" and to link the practice with scientific discovery, both activities being reflections of culture and necessities for progress.

"Design" as a noun is stretched in so many directions, the only way to grasp its meaning is by abstracting it to its most conceptual skeleton, its basic construct. Science can teach design how to find its own core.

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