What is good art ?

All can bring beautiful things into being. Nothing is as fundamentally natural as the act of creating. So what is beauty and harmony in art and design?

Bringing beauty into life enhances man’s abilities and helps him to realize himself. I consider the following pattern is central to art and design: 

• Art and design are everywhere. 
• We experience it, such as, in the architectural design of our daily virtual, political, social, and material environment. 

Every object we use has a design or art element that we can improve. But this does not mean that we have to add decorative bells and whistles to everything. When it comes to good art or design, two basic concepts are essential to harmony: Its function must be performed well, and it should convey satisfaction. 

By the same logic, bad design or art hinders and frustrates us. We should not underestimate the power that design has on the quality of human existence. The beauty we create is the one that will endure when we are no longer here. It is our legacy that we leave on this planet.

 When creating a new design, it is important to design authentically, and with the dedication of a humble craftsman. With animated spirit by the will to make something wonderful. Dedicated to the cause and imbued from within with the zeal and willingness to refine oneself and the cause.

The attitude toward craftsmanship is the deciding factor. Total dedication to the work is considered the only viable path. The mind is uninhibited but focused on the craft. In the work we do, we strive to become the best we can be at it. By continually raising the standard of our work, we produce more and more beautiful things and give our lives a broader meaning. 

Beauty and harmony to a viewer or user mean that a thing is helpful and triggers a good feeling. Good art and design are not only about the aesthetic appearance but rather about the usefulness or effect that the thing fulfils. So depending on the product group we are designing, it is about focusing on simplicity, fun, insight, and intuition.  Beautiful and coherent art and design are also self-explanatory, if something needs detailed instructions and description, it is usually imperfectly designed. Feeling about a product is usually more important than specific performance and cool facts. Experience with something is more important than sober measurements. 

We now know what a good product is, but how do we achieve that goal?

Before we start designing anything, we need to have a clear idea of what the goal is that we want to achieve. What benefit, effect, or feeling do we want to elicit. From that point, we work backward and start connecting dots until we know exactly where to start and what is missing to meet the goal. Often, we run into problems that don’t yet solve. If something has never existed before, it is our job to bring it into the world. This is where the real progress begins. 

Many things already exist in another form or partial solutions that need combining. There are harmony and good design all around us, we need to train our eye to filter this out of the usual visual noise. We are overstimulated and take in too much and unfiltered. It’s important to zoom out and take a helicopter perspective. Forget everything we have learned and trained and throw all beliefs overboard. Now we can take in the whole scene at once and free associate and start building without constraints. If we firmly believe that anything is possible, we will overcome the challenge. 

In this process, it is also important to take already existing working solutions from others and join or improve them. Good solutions we recognize and not try to improve them per se. Study design or art icons and try to recognize the common code. 

Great talents are characterized by openness and sharing achieved solutions to grow in the collective. A swarm is in some areas faster, more creative, and more intelligent than centralized, closed organizations. Except when it comes to war, destruction, and crisis, centralization and tight coordination are superior.

Open source is relatively new and is already being successfully used commercially. Many leading crypto technologies build on it and protocols like Ethereum are a prime example of new designs that are taking the world forward. In the Blockchain, you can analyze all data openly, on Ethereum you can build, change, add, and share. With this open model, the new product will be more dynamic, flexible, efficient, and innovative in unexpected ways. It is not directly art or design at the first moment but from the methods applied it is very similar. 

Such complex, dynamic, newly developed products must keep their suppleness and elasticity in the future, that all parts integrate and continue to grow together. If you lose track, chaos ensues and the design eats itself. Realizing that we are all the same and connected to the world and the universe helps tremendously. If we want to improve one part of a product, we have to take care of everything; you can’t pull on one end without changing the other end as well. Solutions that are tolerant, inclusive, and all-encompassing improve quality in the long run. 

The guiding philosophy is to recognize quality and beauty as the central element, and this will always spread. Encourage inspiration, great things are created at any time. Keep the big picture in mind. Create for the users.

Oli Freuler