| The iMac design and subtlety
Ah, subtlety. Not an easy thing to talk about, for in itself it is a subject that is... subtle.
I started considering it, once again, when I thought about why Jonathan Ive and the designers at Apple have chosen to make colored iMacs’ casing semi-transparent, while the top model (grey) have a fully transparent case.
It could be, and probably is, because without color, the graphite Special Edition simply looked too boring without doing something extraordinary with it. But I think there is more to it than that. The Special Edition is for more sophisticated customers, with more subtle tastes.
Lookkit these images:
Notice how the blue model leaps out at you more, and yet it has a more "safe" look. The bared innards of the grey model is "ugly" to many people. The beauty that is present in things like exposed wires and other electronics is more "subtle". Now what does that mean?
According to my dictionary, definition two, subtle means "Fine or delicate, often when likely to elude perception or understanding."
In other words, it is something that is there, but only to such a small degree that most people don't notice it!
If there is a smell of roses that nine in ten people notice, it is not subtle. If one in ten notice it, it is subtle. If one in a thousand notice it, it is very subtle.
Of course here is where the difficulties set in. For one thing, nobody likes to be told that they are dull or unperceptive, so if one person in a thousand says that there is something there that others don't see, he is sure to be unpopular amongst the 999 others! (Here we also have things like genuine subtlety versus the "emperor's clothes" phenomenon. Fascinating stuff.)
Another thing is, what people are we talking about? Do we have an audience of drug addicts, of Chinese peasants, of Danish college graduates, of four-year-old kids, what do we have? The Chinese peasant is not likely to notice the niceties of Danish poetry, but on the other hand, the Danish college graduate will probably not appreciate small but important differences in how growing rice looks to the peasant. Additionally, the power of a person's perceptions can be very different, in the same person, from time to time, according to age, education, health, mood, tiredness, etc.
This subject is very important to the artist as well as anybody who wants to communicate to other people in general. Because if you are too subtle, you loose a large part of the audience. And if you are too direct, the sophisticated audience gets bored very soon, and leaves.
One solution is to make a variety of products that cater to different tastes, like Apple has done in making a brightly colored iMac and a grey one with exposed parts. (Please, I am not saying you are thick if you like the colored versions. I have an orange iMac myself. Like I said, it is a complex subject:)
Another solution, and a very powerful one (but not easy), is to make "layers" in a work or product. Big colorful strokes on top that catches the attention fast and easily, and under that more details that takes greater attention to see or understand. Some of my favorite works of art do this to an astonishing degree: Pulp Fiction, the Tarantino movie. Battlefield Earth, the SF novel by Hubbard. and Batman; The Dark Night Returns, the comic by Miller. All of those have bold strokes and action and violence and danger to capture the broad audience, and also very subtle nuances of rhythm, language, and images that require repeat viewings/readings to catch even for the sharpest audience.
The best and biggest artists tend to do this. And it does require a very skilled a sophisticated artist to do it well, as well as a powerful one.
A lot of artists do well with only one of these aspects. Barbara Cartland has a huge audience well in hand without ever having been accused of being very subtle. And James Joyce amassed tremendous respect without ever trying to be popular, or even understandable, with any "masses". (Have you ever tried to read Finnigan's Wake? It is an experience. There is not a sentence that does not contain at least one word he made up himself. Now that is subtle!)
If you have trouble being both, work on understandability. If subtlety is forced, it usually ends up being obscurity instead. Good subtlety takes maturity.
Good luck!
- Stobblehouse |
