Aesthetics is my life, so everything I consume has to pass the aesthetic filter first.
Subtly? Ha! I don’t get games if I don’t dig the graphics. The first thing I do when picking new books is look at the dazzling cover art, and then ignore them, because the books I enjoy are usually designed plainly. So yes. A lot. Aesthetics are a communication tool after all, and interests usually come with an aesthetic attached
In recording, I flip flop. I do like to say it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it matters what it sounds like (duct taped broken mic sounds good, it IS good)
But I am really into the esthetic of classic recording with huge mixers and tape machines. Its just so real, and so cool. I have these things, but of course they dont get used as much as the boring old computer, but they are a lot more inspiring to look at. If I could afford to get rid of the Computer I would. The songs ive made right to tape have always been the most fun and easiest to do because its actually ON the tape and you cant edit it to death, and it may actually get finished. 300 songs sitting on a hard drive never get finished. Then a plugin license expires and screws up your whole session… ugh.
Esthetics is important. I leave ugly and simple to those who can’t any better.
Hmmm-…
I love the classic terminal. I grew up in the 2000s so everything had GUI but I like the simplicity of using commands and running programs that seem “hidden” to a regular user. Also nerd is my aesthetic and I like nerdy shit
I tried John Carmack’s “program something with just the OpenBSD base system” experiment and after some adjustment I got to like vi (not vim), ksh and bmake. For a long time this stayed my go-to happy place for hobby coding. Fun thing: on a hacker camp they had a PDP/11 running 2BSD and it was just immediately familiar. Same tools, same vi -> Ctrl-Z -> make -> fg workflow.
Very different but similar in a way: I still consider the general Windows 95 - 2000 peak UI design in many ways and I still regularly use Visual C++ 6 to play around with some Win32 programming.
Almost none. Soooooo much of my interest is blatantly and explicitly based on aesthetics.
I was hesitant to post but so many of these responses have been awesome.
I love old, heavy furniture, and have managed to aquire a lot of nice stuff for free at house clearances by being willing to turn up with a trailer and take something off their hands. I love how it looks, and it really suits our old farmhouse vibe.
But it can be pretty damn annoying to use. Drawers that are a struggle, inefficiently large spaces, and it’s dark and akward to find things in. Sometimes I think about being old and having to downsize, and how I’ll live in a nice bungalow with a fitted kitchen and have closets with lights and spinney gadgets and shit. But til then I’m going to man up and continue wrestling with solid wood armoires.
I like something when it’s looks like it’s from the 2000s. Software? Give me all the info at one screen. Houses? Neighbour’s house in Home Alone. Clothes? Give me the most staurated T shirts and cargo you got.
The architecture in home alone is probably from 50 to 80 years before that.
Depends. Some at least.
For example, I dug out this old screenshot of how I used to listen to DAB radio, because regular radio receiver is too simple:
Lots of visual stimuli.
You can bet I use --verbose with every command possible.More than I’d care to admit.
Water cooling computers. Pretty much all aesthetics. It’s expensive, hard to maintain, and isn’t that much better than decent air cooling these days. Looks really cool, and I still want to do a glass tube build.
Would not recommend to anyone else. You really have to want to do this just because.
It’s like saying it’s V E R Y _ W A R M but really it’s just low-poly without textures.
Although it’s as much of a technical thing for me. I want the low-storage-data, rendered in native-res, old (and smart) technique even if everybody else moved on. Also, less to do.
Depends on the something. I’m a big fan of 70’s furniture for the look specifically. The rich tones, the wood and brass, it’s damn fine. Same for 3D printing, I love the look and feel of it.
Function over form for me, honestly speaking. Aesthetics is a bonus to me, unless the aesthetics are absolutely garbage looking.
