ideas + images

curated by sierra gonzalez 
Filed under

math

 

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.

Filed under  //   beauty   collectors   design   logo   math   science  

Comments [0]

Searching for an algorithm for taste

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23Netflix-t.html?pagewanted=all

This week’s New York Times Sunday magazine checks in with a few competitors in the Netflix competition. One of the contestants estimates that an accurate predition of whether someone would like the movie Napoleon Dynamite—a film that viewers seem to either love or hate—would put him 15% closer to the algorithm that would earn a $1 million prize.

When Bertoni runs his algorithms on regular hits like “Lethal Weapon” or “Miss Congeniality” and tries to predict how any given Netflix user will rate them, he’s usually within eight-tenths of a star. But with films like “Napoleon Dynamite,” he’s off by an average of 1.2 stars.

According to the article, the “Napoleon Dynamite problem” exposes the “a serious weakness of computers”: their inability to anticipate all of the factors in a person’s decision-making process.  Someone could decide to watch a movie after a Blockbuster clerk’s passionate recommendation, or to understand a cultural reference point, or simply to try something different.

Another critic of computer recommendations is, oddly enough, Pattie Maes, the M.I.T. professor. She notes that there’s something slightly antisocial—“narrow-minded”—about hyperpersonalized recommendation systems. Sure, it’s good to have a computer find more of what you already like. But culture isn’t experienced in solitude. We also consume shows and movies and music as a way of participating in society. That social need can override the question of whether or not we’ll like the movie.

An interesting read. [If You Liked This, You’re Sure to Love That | NYTimes]

Filed under  //   algorithm   math   museum website   taste  

Comments [0]