Aesthetics

            
             In today's American society, aesthetics is the main topic on every graphic designers mind. The dictionary defines it as "Of or concerning the appreciation of beauty or good taste", or "A guiding principle in matters of artistic beauty and taste". Aesthetics is remaking commerce, culture, and consciousness according to Virginia Postrel, an economics columnist for the New York Times. She writes that biologically humans are visual, tactile beings that respond to our environment. Also, she discusses how we are now creating a society of aesthetics with "plenitude and pluralism", only because of the reasons like travel, education, immigration, and media. Her whole big point on aesthetics is that she states, "People are eager to pay Starbucks for more than coffee - for a sensory environment that pleases more than just their palates". She is basically saying that Demand does create supply, but actually supply can also create demand. Postrel also goes on to talk about the breakdown of "cultural homogeneity" in the 60s, and how now it is helping aesthetics by the rising incomes and falling prices of today's market world. She states that household income has increased and families have gotten smaller, which makes more for income with further spending room. In economics, the information that we have does not say that aesthetics help with the quality of life, but that we are overstressing inflation and thinking about the economy's real output of value. Postrel sums it up best with, "Aesthetics, shows rather than tells, delights rather that instructs. The effects are immediate, perceptual and emotional. They are not cognitive, although we may analyze them after the fact." She goes on to talk about how Aesthetics is a way of identity, including aesthetic identity. Choice and desire, is what I believe makes it all happen. Aesthetics can change a lot of things in our life, and it could be put to good use or bad, but only time can tell us which it will truly help out.