It’s a well-writ mantra that in effective design, style always follows substance; beautifully patterned sheets on a concrete block will not transform it into a comfortable bed any more than striking images and the latest animation techniques will turn an ill-conceived website into an effective communication tool.
The renowned Steve Jobs quote “design is not just what it looks and feels like, design is how it works” is the sleeve-worn slogan of many, but with only surface-level analysis it can be a dangerous crutch. What it is is at the centre of it… in fact, what it is is at the centre of everything.
Substance comprises the immutable ideal, the symbols and their relationships that are fundamentally true beyond time. Style is the development of a means of communicating these symbols and relationships through metaphor. Substance is ineffable, and we lack the ability to conjure it or consciously comprehend it — we can only recognise it intuitively and communicate it through abstractions. These abstractions, cascading through layers and layers of hierarchy, are style.
I’ll posit that design is the conscious attempt to facilitate communication. In that Steve Jobs quote, the it that he is referring to — whether intentionally or not — is communication. The closer we can get to consciously understanding what substantive principle we are communicating, and the more considered we can be about the shared stylistic understanding between the parties that we foster a relationship between, the more effectively we can design.
The study of symbols and signs as an exploration into substance is called semiotics. Carl Jung formulated the concept of archetypes as ‘the psychic counterpart of instinct’, that in all of us there is unconcious recognition of the ineffable substance that cascades into subconscious and conscious awareness through recognition of metaphorical connection to our external world. When I learned to examine my assumptions, making them conscious, I realised that each beget another and that there seems to be no end in sight.
I find it fascinating.