Beauty & Design

Images get cheaper, beauty doesn't.

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Q. You've argued beauty is functional. What's an ugly thing everyone uses that you'd most like to fix?

A. The airport security process. It is designed as if the passenger's time and dignity had no value. A calmer, better-looking checkpoint would probably also be a faster one, since stressed people fumble, and that is the whole argument for beauty as function.

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Q. With AI now making images in seconds, does beauty get cheaper, or more precious?

A. Images get cheaper, beauty doesn't. A model trained on everything returns the average of everything, and the average was never beautiful. When output is infinite, what becomes scarce is proof that another person bothered.

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Q. What's one beautiful thing you've seen recently that had nothing to do with design?

A. A street in Albania that had 15 car washes on it. Coming out of an authoritarian and restricted society, they take the cleanliness of their big old Mercedeses very seriously.

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Q. Your Now Is Better work pushes back on doom. Why do some smart, educated people so often believe the world is getting worse?

A. Education doesn't protect against it, it just supplies better arguments. Our brains fast-track bad news, and no equivalent shortcut evolved for good news. The most convincing doom I ever heard came from a sharp EU-court lawyer in Rome who told me we were watching the end of democracy; that night I looked it up and found one democracy in 1823 and about 96 in 2023.

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Q. What's something you once believed strongly that you've changed your mind about?

A. For years I said Style = Fart, that only content mattered. Working on Beauty with Jessica Walsh changed my mind: Beautiful things get used more and maintained better, so form is part of how the content works.

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Q. Of the lines in Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far, which one do you still believe, and which one would you cross out now?

A. I still believe "Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted." It also explains why we don't notice progress. Strangely, and surprising to myself, I would not cross out any of them. 

Ongoing thread. More from Stefan Sagmeister to follow.