The Anti-Enthusiasts

Design Blogs: The Vacuum of Enthusiasm, my Design Observer manifesto on what the world of design on the internet needs (critique, history, experience) lives on in the comments. Recent commenters have offered up a potpourri of blogs with the edge I’ve been missing. A few highlights:

Mirror Mirror (with whom I have corresponded about our mutual befuddlement over Kelly Wearstler) on Lonny. My take is here.

But some major problems remain. Firstly no one is editing the photos. They’ve still got a bad case of the ‘just because it’s online we’ve thrown in every picture we took and you can choose which ones you like best’…

And the stylist has been working overtime – everything has been ‘styled’ to within an inch of its life. And I use the word stylist in the singular advisedly, because, with the exception of the Kelly Wearstler hotel spread (which is actually, incredibly, almost OK), every house ends up being full of exactly the same stylists’ tricks.

First up there’s, ARRANGE PRETTY CLUTTER ON TRAYS.

Decorno, now on break, on Things That Are Wrong.

10. Target art. I don’t care how lovely the B&W framed photo is, it’s not very original and you’ll be staring at the same thing 100,000 other people will have in their homes, as well. Just because it’s a lovely birch tree photographed amongst the fog doesn’t mean it’s not this decade’s Nagel. Take it down, call your local art school, and buy something original.

And this recent kerfluffle on Design*Sponge, usually the happiest of blogs. Apparently pancakes can be controversial.

Oh right, why didn’t I think of my parchment-lined tray and the oven adjacent to the middle of the park. I’ll just do that and then after everyone is seated, I will serve them hot pancakes and then stick name cards in them, even though everyone will remove them two seconds later. They’ll chide me for my perfectionism and we’ll all have a giggle. Good times in the park.

This last is actually a great example of the wide world of bothersome. I never look at fancy party posts, but have a personal vendetta against cute tea towels. If I ever do start my own design dissent blog, I am thinking of banning them.