The Aesthetic Imperative

Virginia Postrel makes the claim that aesthetics and design have penetrated every aspect of our lives. And for good reason, we are naturally visual. She claims that style is Incorporated into areas even where the function of the product use to be at the forefront. Although some aesthetics are set in a specific cultural or personal context, they function on subliminal, psychological levels and target our emotions.

The entire first introduction paragraph to our twenty-first century world Postrel uses various overexagerated examples to explain our obsession with how things look. Through it she explains and emphasizes our current value on and priorities associated with the visual. Postrel uses expert testimony from David Brown (former president of the Art Center College of Design) to support the claim that we are biologically aesthetic. She utilizes other designer, theorist, and peer testimony (grocery shopper, writer) to emphasize these points. In addition Postrel cites the title sequence to Seven, colors in women’s fashion, and computer examples, among others.

Concerning warrants, Postrel uses substantive warrant to disassociate aesthetics with what others might generally consider it. Instead she uses it to describe the design-centered world that we live in and our obsession with how things appear. Postrel associates buying power with aesthetics. More broadly, substantive warrants are used to build the associations with her world where people expect “vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, designer coffee, nail salons, and trees in our parking lots” and reality, where most of the statements do hold. Ethos is used where the authority of the argument lies in the expert testimony. With pathos, she glowingly describes Starbucks, and shoppers describe their experience shopping and their ability to choose.

I agree that the visual/tactile is a good thing. I am a person who is drawn to “pretty things,” clean designs, and the ability to choose between colors, looks, etc. The point she addressed in tempering the aesthetic is very important in my mind. Although I will buy novel cute new product that addresses an issue or person like Obama, I am always reminded how easily I can be persuaded. I have been told that I am the shopper all the stores love, and I am trying to work past that