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I’m still experimenting with audio stuff – here are my notes from the recent podcast on creating beauty. I’ve been thinking about content blocking.
Welcome:
Welcome to the [4th] edition of Adventures in Creative Communication. My name is [Mitra Cline] and I’m your host – this [Saturday, July 7th 2012] – a [warm sunny] day here in [Santa Barbara California] and – As always – I’m here to keep your creative curiosity flowing – with stories on new technology and classic techniques in creative communication.
Intro:
My topic today is [beauty] – defined as [the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).]
Context:
[Let us assume that the success of any business is a satisfied customer. Based on that, the most valuable thing creative person can offer is the ability to make things that are pleasurable or deeply satisfying. Beauty is an important concept to understand as a successful creative person.]
Story:
[What is beauty again? As defined – beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder – it’s the individual experience of pleasure and deep satisfaction. Beauty is a quality that a thing or a person possess. This quality gives intense pleasure and deep satisfaction.
Beautiful things are pleasurable.
Pleasure is from gratification.
And gratification is getting what you asked for.
Based on that logic beauty seems simple enough. To create beauty just give people want they ask for.
“You asked for a red button, you got a red button.”
The tricky part about beauty is, will the red button really possess a pleasurable quality?
“I got the red button, but I’m not pleased about it.”
You can see how this issue of understanding beauty is key to success as a designer or artist.
Beauty kinda flows from the known into the unknown.
From a scientific point of view to an artistic perspective.
Another way to think about it is from the left brain to the right brain.
From a logical structured independent thought to a holistic interconnected state of being.
The key to logically creating beautiful things is understanding pleasure.
Think of pleasure is as a value on a scale.
The most classic scale is from 0 to 100.
100 being the most pleasurable and 0 is the least pleasurable.
So imagine if your client told you, “I’m 45% satisfied with your project”,
What can you do to improve it?
A common technique is the comparison. Put 2 similar things next to each other, one will be seen as slightly less attractive than the other. Here you are establishing the higher value or more pleasurable experience in comparison to a similar but different option. This information can be extremely valuable in understanding what quality are pleasurable to your client or customers.]
The tip
In summary – [beauty is in the eye of the beholder – it’s an experience of pleasure that falls at different places depending on a persons life of experience. The best advise I can give any creative person in understanding beauty would be to expand their own personal value scale of pleasurable experiences as often as possible. ]
Quote/ Reference:
If you find this topic interesting, I suggest [researching more on sociological methods. I also recommend looking into the DaDa art movement of the 1900, and specially the work of Marcel Duchamp. I’ll end with a quote from him, “The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”]
Ending:
[Thanks for tuning in. If you would like more information please visit the blog at foreverbird.com – if your an email junkie you’ll also find a newsletter link in the footer. My monthly email is a digest of blog activity and is sure to cover all interesting developments from adventures in creative communication. ]
