The world has lost it’s lustre… Without grandeur it has lost beauty and awe… At its core, grandeur is the quality of melting away the…
The Gravity of Beauty: On the Burden of Making Something Everyone Wants There is a peculiar law that governs the realm of human creation, one…
Kire: Cutting A distinctive notion in Japanese aesthetic discourse is that of the “cut” (kire) or, “cut-continuity” (kire-tsuzuki). The “cut” is a basic trope in…
Artisan – Authenticity The artisan is not merely a skilled worker. The artisan is a person whose identity is legible in the thing they make. …
Nommo – Echo Nommo is the Dogon concept of the creative power of the spoken word, sound as the generative force of reality – understood…
Heka – Purpose Heka (ḥkꜣ) is one of the most primordial and powerful concepts in ancient Egyptian cosmology, so fundamental that it is sometimes difficult…
Kanso – Simplicity Kanso (簡素) is the aesthetic and spiritual discipline of simplicity, but in Japanese thought, simplicity is never merely the absence of clutter. …
Iki – Style Iki (粋) is the aesthetic of the urbane survivor, chic, stylish, and worldly, but with a flicker of melancholy and a knowing…
Wabi-Sabi – Transience Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is not a single word but a marriage of two distinct aesthetic-spiritual conditions, each with its own genealogy, its own…
A beautiful product speaks all languages The idea that a beautiful product speaks all languages captures the power of design to communicate universally, beyond words,…
Shibui (渋い) – Beauty Shibui (渋い, adjective), shibusa (渋さ, noun), or shibumi (渋み, noun), all derived from the character 渋 (shibu) is one of the…
Sōshoku – Ornaments Sōshoku is the direct counterpart to kinō. Where kinō asks “What does this do?” sōshoku asks “What does this show?” It is…
Kinō – Function Kinō (機能) is a concept that seems straightforward, function, functional capacity, but in Japanese design and philosophical discourse, it carries a precision…