What is aesthetics?

- [Instructor] What is aesthetics? Why should it be important to you as a designer of web experiences? In this lesson, we'll explore these questions and discover some reasons why paying attention to aesthetics is important for good design. Good design is everywhere if you look for it. As you work through this course, you will be introduced to new concepts that can help you improve the aesthetic qualities of your designs for web experiences. After all, as a designer, you have the responsibility to create good, aesthetically pleasing designs. In general terms, aesthetics is an area in philosophy in which practitioners study beauty as it relates to art. The philosopher Plato first spoke of the pleasure brought about by the quality of beauty. Later, Aristotle further stated that it was the function of art to create an experience of pleasure in the viewer. The term aesthetics was coined in the 1730s by a philosopher named Alexander Baumgarten based on a Greek word that referred to the sense of perception. He also introduced the concept of taste whereby one judges the beauty of an object by one's senses, that is, their sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. So what then makes a thing beautiful? And can we disagree? Could then beauty be objective? Well, yes and no. While many may agree that some things, say like the ancient Greek marble sculpture, the Venus de Milo, are irrefutably beautiful, there can be a historical, contextual, and even subjective component to what is considered beautiful. Philosopher Immanuel Kant revised the concept of aesthetics in the 1870s as the subjective means by which one can judge and appreciate beauty. He also claimed beauty is subjective, it can shift over time, and it is dependent on context. Let's dive a little more into the language. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, beauty is the quality of a thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. In other words, beauty arises when qualities like color, line, and shape are combined in a way that pleases the intellect and the aesthetic senses. However, if beauty is subjective and can shift over time and is dependent on context, can a work of art or design be considered beautiful today and then not beautiful in 100 or 1,000 years? Aesthetics as it relates to graphic and digital design in the 21st century has evolved to refer to the visual attractiveness and cohesiveness of a work, which usually means utilizing one or more of the elements and principles of design, which we'll discuss later. Good design communicates more than words. Good design communicates a mood or a feel that goes beyond the content in the design. So why should you pay attention to aesthetics as a designer of web experiences? Because today, especially with the prevalence of the internet, along with AR, VR, AI, video and screen projections, digital displays, and touch-enabled devices like tablets and smartphones, design aesthetics is moving beyond the visual to include other senses like hearing and touch. They require fluidity to adapt to a variety of devices while remaining visually pleasing, reliable vehicles of communication, which require far more planning and attention to detail than a static design used for print. In design, as with fine art and marketing, first impressions are vital. In fact, they matter so much that the beauty or aesthetics of a design can make the difference between a positive and negative brand association. Good design can truly produce and reinforce positive feelings about a person, product, or service. Think about your own preferences as a consumer. The visual appeal of a particular design is often immediate and unconscious and can be just as important as the non-visual quality of a product or service like price or durability. I'm sure you've seen in your own internet travels examples of sites that blow you away with their beauty and creativity. You've probably also seen sites that are simply awful to look at and leave you wondering how the design team is still employed. As a designer, you have a responsibility to create good designs for your audience. Design influences everything, and we can find examples of it everywhere we look. We see design in our furniture and electronics, in our food packaging, our transportation, our clothing, our architecture, and our technology. We experience design at every turn, at sporting events, in the supermarket, on billboards, at the mall, on our TVs, computers, touchpads, and smartphones. Look around you and get inspired.