[Setekh]

As people in general, what do you prefer - style or substance? Style being appearance and substance being useability or utility. I mean this in terms of just about anything - cars, planes, ships, renders, simcity colonies, web sites - if you were designing one of these things, would you go for style or substance?

Because I don't work for a big company and don't really have that much of a 'professional' reputation to uphold in terms of a corporate environment where a swish look could get me a better job, I tend to go for substance. Of course I like things to look cool, but if I had a cool looking site which couldn't serve a community or a car with an aluminium-film paint coat with no engine - it'd be kind of pointless. Conversely, things can have a lot of substance but be so unstylish or aesthetically displeasing that you can't get into them (take a 500kb text file that has all the info you need for an assigment or essay, but you'd probably lose brain cells going through the whole damn thing).

So, I'm for substance. What do you guys think? Have some reasoning, of course.  

[Snakeseyes]

Because of my work as a graphic designer, I believe that a balanced mixture of both is the best. I have to make an advertisement that looks good, but it also must also showing the message that I want to get through to other people. I can't make only what I think is cool looking.

So, I am for both, I can't say one or the other.

[Martinus]

Yes I go for a mix of both too, except where cars are concerned, I'm saving up for a Humvee, those things might look a little weird but they're damn near indestructible.

At the end of the day functionality is king but if there's scope to make it look nice too then why not?

[JarC]

Depends on the subject...

For instance, in my previous job, I worked for a government Environment Protection Agency as in-house software developer, substance was foremost important, style came only into play if there was room for it in the project and as far as it was required to form a logical flow of data-entry and input. When time permitted, we did introduce little things (mostly iconic) to aid users in navigating thru program structure (as in which section performs what function)

However, while working there I got headhunted by a commercial company, and after the transition I discovered that the truth of the matter is that if you want to sell software, style is of the utmost importance, even over substance...at first...

but once you're rooted, you better start getting to the substance or you're out in the end afterall...



[This message has been edited by JarC (edited 05-15-2001).]

[wEvil]

an even mix of both,
but having said that a lack of style is often a style in itself (take heavy industry)

UPDATE:

if anyone wants the shivan superjuggernought or the hades rework they're up on my website now.  The shivan juggernought will need 3dsmax since it uses procedurals not texmaps.  The hades uses freespace2 standard texmaps.

[This message has been edited by wEvil (edited 05-15-2001).]

[morris13]

I've always been a big fan of substance over style. That's not to say that I don't appreciate style, you should have absolutely as much style as you possibly can right up till it starts interfering with the substance. Cars a perfect example. A Lamborghini might draw a lot of heads, but a Buick Grand National or a BMW M5 will carry twice as many people just as fast, and that guy in a porsche is going to be a lot more surprised when the buick wastes him light to light >

[C.M.Stone]

A good example of this debate can be found in the recently released game Age Of Sail II.  (I know its way OT here, but hear me out)
The game supposedly depicts the fighting ships of the line.  Tall ships with up to 120 guns mounted on up to three decks.  The graphics are BEAUTIFUL the ocean effects are great, although a little a too gentle, cannons spewing smoke, masts getting blown off, fire consuming ships.  It all looks great. ie style.
Conversly, HALF THE BUTTONS DON'T WORK.  I'm not kidding, the manual is like 23 pages, no tutorials, trying to use the formations causes your fleet to go in random direction, some circling and eventually your ships ram each other untill they sink.  Just about anything that can go wrong with a game went wrong in this one.
Which brings me to the AoSII community.  75% of the people who bought the game took it back.  The others are holding out for more patches(the last one screwed things up worse than they were before) and debating about what to do with the game.  The developers/publishers refuse to comment, and people are taking it upon themselves to write an editor for the game(no it didn't come with one.) And even the sailing model is extremely flawed.
I don't think they hold on because of the graphics, but because they see great potential for the game in the future.
Were these people fooled?
I don't know.  But I guess I'd have to say substance is more important than style, although a balance is needed, Substance outweighs style.

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How many @ssh0les do we have on this ship anyway?

[IceFire]

Setekh...im going to try and argue that style and substance could be considered the same thing if you look at it in an odd and twisted sort of way that I'm trying to right now.

In order for something to be stylish, it must have substance.

In order for something to have substance, it must be stylish.

Contradiction?  Uncompairable?  Not a'tall...I just did it  

Now...with all of this worthless information and rambling, there is a point.  The key to achieving both is to have a product that is both asthetically appealing as well as productive and useful.  Speaking on general terms of course.  Balance is key.

[Ace]

Here's another point of view:

Substance styles itself, while style creates substance of it's own.

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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
 http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/

[Setekh]

 

Originally posted by IceFire:
Contradiction?  Uncompairable?  Not a'tall...I just did it  

It's contradiction for me. I'm a junk web designer, y'see  

[Shrike]

I want it all.  

[Starwing]

One word: functionality.
You can style things to the point of being completely unuseable, but also make it look very pretty by just keeping it as simple and functional as possible.

And there is also style and style, I mean, often enough companies pay lots of money to so-called "designers" to style their products, and then wonder why no one buys them,  because they're simply ugly.

[joek]

Setekh, in web design terms, here's some links for ya:
Usability Experts are From Mars, Graphic Designers are From Venus
Jakob Nielsen's review of Magritte's "The Betrayal of Images"

For me, I think that it all depends on the "purpose". For example, in art, the style is the substance (like  http://www.trueistrue.com/  or  http://www.once-upon-a-forest.com/ ). In other things like information resources or online shopping (things where accomplishing a task is your first priority), substance is primary, but style should be there only to guide and make it easier to accomplish your goal.

With my site  http://www.joek.com/ , I had substance (poetry and jokes), but my focus was on style (homepage archive). But then after paying attention to both sides of the "style vs. content" war, I figured out that the primary focus of my site was it's substance, and so I changed the style to what I have now (which by the way is like Jakob's in that it does not use any graphics for design, but I find it a lot more appealing than his design).

So in summary... it depends what your focus is: something for art and enjoyment's sake, or something for people to use and be useful.

Joe.

[QXMX]

I'd have to say substance take precidence.  The first thing that I look at when I play a game or look at a website is can I use it, and use it easily, and is it interesting.  If this is the case, I can enjoy it more even if the graphics aren't as flashy as someplace else

My 2 cents  

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Co-Creator, Project Omega18

[Darkshear]

I think you are all looking at style and substance and only looking at the differences between them.
The simple fact is, they go hand in hand...you can't have one without the other unless you go to very great extremes.
The trick comes in in how you blend the two together, to create the effect or impression that you are trying to achieve.
Which will determine how much of either you wish to go for.
I don't preffer either, I can jump back and forth between the two rather easily, since I use them as tools, and don't see them as limits.

Neither is better...and both together will work much better. at least from an artistic standpoint.
Artistically speaking, none of us should be at useability over style, or else we should all be engineers.
But as I try to imitate life in a lot of my work, I have to conceed to substance quite often. WHen used in conjunction with style, that is when your best work will come through.
And style and substance are very general terms as well...as each has tons of subcatagories.

Basically they are both just tools in my opinion, there to be used as you see fit to gain the properaspexts in whatever you are trying to create..and neither has to take away from the other. THey can be harmonious...you just have to first be willing to use them to you benifit, and then learn how to use them.

Just my two rambling cents

Rob

[C.M.Stone]

 

Originally posted by Darkshear:
Artistically speaking, none of us should be at useability over style, or else we should all be engineers.
Rob[/B]

Well, then I'm screwed cause I'm an Engineer.


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How many @ssh0les do we have on this ship anyway?

[Darkshear]

I think you took that a little personally and the wrong way... I apologize if you found that offensive...though I dont see why.

My point was, as artists our art is just that, art. Art itself is a style of expressing oneself. If we become so obsessed with useability and functionality that all of our work is a slave to it, then we are in essence becomming engineers, not creating art so much as a realistic design.

I don't see how that is offensive to an engineer, or how you are "screwed" by it. As an engineer I would think you would appreciate the value of funcionality and substance over style. Though engineers have to have a bit of style also, or we wouldn't all like the new ferrari or porche

Rob

[Jabu]

I think the Ferrari is a bit ugly... love the Porsche though.

The best car in the world is the Volvo S80, preferably yellow