So I was looking at this blog, which is a nice blog with nice design things in it. But it's got the same problem every blog about design has, which never ceases to annoy me.
Where is all the stuff?
These are supposedly living spaces. Right? Does anyone ever go in there? Does anyone set anything down? Do appliances and lamps magically work without power cords?
And here's another question: Would actual living in one of these space mess up all the nifty angles and levels and lines and things that the designers went to so much trouble and expense to create?
At our house, we have tons of books. We also have tons of CDs (close to 1,000) which are not going away anytime soon. We also make a lot of things. We draw, we paint, we move around. We put on our shoes. We take them off. When we get home, we set down our keys. Somewhere. On a surface.
What infuriates me about all these design-y photo shoots of spaces is how they eliminate the things that you actually have in your space. I believe this is a mind trick, to make you think that if you had that space that your own personal clutter quotient would be eliminated and you would float around in an optimized state at all times.
Just once I'd like to see someone do a shoot where a space was designed to be lived in, and show what that looks like. Or better yet, show ways to make all your stuff look good, not just go away.
And I don't mean just a strategically-placed single piece of paper on a desk in a home office to suggest "work." I mean, messy. Like it really looks. If you can make that pleasant, then you could be the world's greatest designer.
