aesthetics of joy

Socks are a secret way to be joyful, even (especially!) in serious situations. No one has to know that inside your shoes are rainbow stripes, or polka dots, or a pair of owls on ice-skates. Your feet are your own territory; you’re free to decorate them as you choose.

I’ve always loved colorful, patterned socks. My philosophy is, “Why not?” No one has to know they’re there, and the act of putting them on in the mornings perks me up. Taking them off at the end of the day, I smile again, remembering that they were under there, my true joyful self under all the emotions that came and went.

Joyful socks don’t have to be expensive. They shouldn’t be! They only need to be bright and comfortable. Yesterday, I fell in love with these charming pairs at the Gap. I couldn’t resist them, and they’re on sale. The fox has a stocking cap. The penguin is bundled up. The owl is headed for Rockefeller Center. Are they too cute? Probably, but that never hurt anyone. It’s a gloomy, drizzly day in Brooklyn, but I’m inside mulling cider and contemplating a winter with warm, happy feet. Wishing you the same!

The Instagram feed @thiswildidea has been giving me a lot of joy lately. Have you seen it? Photographer Theron Humphrey’s project Maddie on Things isn’t new, but his photos of coonhound Maddie continue to be charming and inventive, and Maddie must be the most dexterous and amenable dog I’ve seen. Maddie deadpans with the best of them, making the photos delightfully absurd.

Maddie’s success provides further evidence that we relish animals in ridiculous situations. The web is full of examples, but the phenomenon actually dates back much further, to the nineteenth century and photographer Harry Whittier Frees’s portraits of kittens in human scenarios. (And who knows, probably it’s even older than that.) Surely there’s a cuteness factor here, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. There’s something special in the way that projects like this ritualize surprise. They give us a formula which sets our expectations, but each installment disrupts them in new ways. Each photo follows a pattern, yet also pushes a boundary. It is playful and endearing and embarrassing — and we love Maddie for her game willingness to go along for the ride.

Not to write cuteness off entirely, though. Cuteness is at root an aesthetic of vulnerability, and nothing is more vulnerable than the willingness to let someone put you in absurd situations. There’s sometimes a fine line between affection and humiliation, and it is a very sweet kind of companionship to be this loved and this trusting. Innocence by definition entails blind faith, and no matter how jaded we become over time, we seem to take a vicarious thrill in innocence and the way children and animals simply trust their welfare to our imperfect selves.

To be absurd, to be part of an absurd event, is also a kind of release. I think on some level we empathize with Maddie’s readiness to be part of someone else’s story, to be medium and subject, and to take on these strange challenges created for her. In any situation where we give up control and surrender to an experience (Philippe Halsman’s jump photos come to mind), we open up a new possibility to surprise ourselves. Self-surprise is one of the greatest joys, when we discover some new lightness or freedom within ourselves. Perhaps the greatest joy of participating in absurdity is permission: to be ridiculous, to be out of character, or simply to take ourselves less seriously.

Images: ThisWildIdea
See more of Maddie, here.

Today’s Joymaker profile spotlights Chris Duffy, one of the founders of a soon-to-be-released humor magazine for the iPad called Paperweight. I was excited to hear from Chris that Aesthetics of Joy was an inspiration for the design of the magazine, and looking forward to seeing how joy manifests in the experience when it launches. I asked Chris about how he and his cofounder Brian use the iPad’s uniquely interactive environment to create joy, and to talk more broadly about the connection between joy and humor.

Why did you decide to create Paperweight?

Brian and I met performing comedy together in Boston. I’m a writer and editor and he’s a web developer. We’d both been dreaming of starting a humor magazine and when we figured out how perfectly our skills matched, we decided to go for it. Brian and I felt that there wasn’t yet a hilarious magazine that was championing beautiful design and taking advantage of the interactive capabilities of the iPad. We both had met so many unbelievably funny people who didn’t have a platform for their work. That’s why we decided to created Paperweight.

How do you want people to feel when they read Paperweight? 

Physically, we want our readers to be laughing so hard that they experience shortness of breath, muscle spasms, and difficulty communicating. Unfortunately, those are also signs of a heart attack, so we’ll settle for a wide grin and a chuckle.

What do you think is the relationship between humor and joy? 

That’s a great question. I think James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote Between Heaven and Mirth, a fantastic book about the role of humor in spirituality, says it best. “Finding a spirit of joy in your life may help you become a more humorous person, someone capable of seeing things from a ‘funny’ side. Seeing something from a humorous vantage point can spontaneously fill you with joy. (Imagine a friend making a funny comment about a tough situation in your life that helps you gain some needed perspective.)” 

What are some ways that you go about creating joy when designing for the iPad? 

The biggest way we try to create joy is through surprise. The reason we’re so excited about designing for tablet computers instead of print or the web is because of the interactive capabilities. We can literally make a magazine that talks back to you. We’re working on creating all sorts of interactive surprises, from a button that translates our content for dogs to a board game called “How to Survive the Work Day.”

We’ve also focused on creating a joyful aesthetic, one that I think readers of this blog will immediately recognize. We have polka dots! And colors! And clean lines! Unlike a lot of humor publications, design is really important to us. We want to make sure that the visual experience matches and enhances the quality of our content.

If you were a joke, what joke would you be? 

If you like what you read, you can help Chris get Paperweight off the ground by funding their Kickstarter. They have some pretty delightful rewards — check it out! 

Images (aren’t they to die for?): Excerpted from “Alphabet of Untranslatable Words,” by illustrator Fuchsia MacAree, slated to appear in the launch issue of Paperweight magazine.

I often take brands to task for “joywashing”: advertising their products or services with a veneer of positive emotion that is either unsupported by the product itself or completely inappropriate to the product. So I was happy to see this ad from IKEA in the UK that uses aesthetics of joy and comfort in a very fitting way. Say what you will about IKEA, its products enable the transitory and the low-income to create a home, in the context of an extremely expensive category. The aesthetics of IKEA products themselves tend to be bright and cheerful, and yet the simple designs have become a mainstay of the DIY community as a substrate for creativity. We giggle at the Swedish names, smile at the clever design touches, and feel at ease about the prices. So the positioning line “happy inside” doesn’t feel like a reach to me.

There are many lovely things about this ad, (you should watch the “making of” too), and several nice uses of aesthetics of joy. I love the jumping shots, especially slowed down and sped up, and the shots among the lighting. There’s a deliberate sense of lightness throughout, both lightweight and illuminated. And it feels spontaneous because these are real cats, untrained, and you can sense their genuine curiosity as they poke through the textiles and drawers and lampshades. I have to say, it’s not unlike how I feel when I first get to IKEA (before the maze has beaten me down) — energized and curious about what I might find. It’s nice that they kept in one of the little fights, because that’s part of a happy home life too — it’s not all dancing and cuddles and naps on the sofa. Good for IKEA and Mother for not overly staging it and conducting this in an experimental way. Altogether, from how its made to how it appears in the end, it does make me feel “happy inside.”

Though assembling the furniture when you get home — that’s another story.

{via Apartment Therapy}

Virginia sent me this a couple of weeks ago with the note: “This little guy is in the Bargello in Florence and always seems like the epitome of joy.” I couldn’t agree more.

Baby fat, sweet little wings, and the upswept gesture all give him an infectious kind of aura. It is always interesting to me when sculptures manage to achieve such lightness in heavy materials like bronze and stone. But my favorite part about the statue is the way he balances on a scallop shell. It makes the proportions odd and surprising, and sets a foundation for the composition that is just a little bit magical.

These sweet rings by John Medley and his partner just make me smile. They’re like little wearable worlds —  cute microcosms that travel with you wherever you go.

Available here. (I find their profile totally joyful too!)

Weirdest thing.

The other day when my laundry came back, I opened the bag and started to put away my clothes, and there in amongst the hand towels I discovered this little guy. A hitchhiker! He was just sitting there, hanging out, as if it made all the sense in the world that he should be there. To be honest, it was kind of creepy at first. An unexplained intrusion into my mundane evening, with vaguely magical undertones.

I had to figure out how he got there. I wondered if maybe he was a gift from the laundromat, a holiday thank you for my business. But when I called to ask, the woman had no idea what I was talking about. (Not a normal query, granted: “An elf. In my laundry. Did you put it there?”) As far as I could tell, she thought I had received someone else’s garment by accident and she asked me to return it next time.

So he must have arrived by accident. I looked it him more closely. Cute gnome. He’s made out of beautiful felt and pipecleaners and wool yarn. He doesn’t look like he’s been through the laundry — so it’s not one of those situations where he got stuck in the lint filter like a sock and emerged in the next load. It’s a mystery.

What’s wonderful — and for me, joyful — about this kind of mystery is that while I know there’s a rational explanation for the gnome’s appearance, it’s hidden from me. The gnome is felt and yarn and wire — it’s made of matter and must obey the laws of physics. Wherever it came from, it had to take a tangible path to get here. Perhaps it fell out of a crafter’s purse or pocket while she was shifting her sheets from washer to dryer, adhered to the laundress’s sleeve by static cling, and made its way into my bag. But I don’t know that story — no one does — and for me the gnome’s past is a giant ellipsis. This would be a nonstarter if the item were a sock or a teddy bear. But it’s an object that takes a form with a built-in magical narrative. Gnomes, elves, fairies are the stuff of myth and lore. If anything has a plausible reason for mysterious behavior, the gnome is it. The gnome roams, as we learn in Amelie and those Travelocity commercials — it appears in places, without taking a journey to get there. Just like my gnome. In a way, it’s a silly and trivial happening. But I wanted to share it because I think it provides an interesting example of the alignment between magical narratives and magical aesthetics.

For the meantime, I’ve decided to keep him. When I was working at Landor in Sydney, my coworkers and I used to joke when we were overwhelmed that we needed a magic gnome to handle the extra work. Well, right now I have ten days until I present my research on Aesthetics of Joy for the first time, and there are lots of loose ends to tie up. I could use a magic gnome. As my mom says, sometimes things find us. And right now, my gnome just makes me feel like the mysteries of the universe are working in my favor!

*** Please bear with me if posts are sparse over the next two weeks as I complete this last leg of my masters. I will be back in force come December 14th, with lots of photos of my latest joy-inspired furniture pieces and many thoughts I’ve been saving up to post. Thanks for reading!

xx Ingrid

There’s something joyful about an odd little piece of trivia, especially when endearingly illustrated in such child-like fashion. Learn Something Every Day presents a new fact daily, and you can submit your own facts for Young to sketch up.

Aside from babies, there really is nothing cuter in a costume than a dog. Cat lovers might dispute this, but cats are so reluctant, and their claws so sharp, and they always look so put upon. Dogs are lovably malleable and unaccountably cheerful in the face of whatever ridiculous ensemble we might devise for them.

No need to elaborate on the link between cuteness and joy (I’ve written about it here). Just head over to Flickrblog to see more costumed pooches grinning and bearing it.

Happy Halloween, and have a joyful weekend!

Xx Ingrid

I dare you not to giggle while watching this short film from the People in Order series by Lenka Clayton and John Price. The film presents people in age order from 1 to 100 years old.

The drum device is pure aesthetics of joy — an exuberant bang that runs like a unifying thread through the ages. It also distinguishes them: the four and five year-olds’ delicious pleasure in generating noise is a powerful contrast with the defiant staccato of the their 96 and 100 year-old elders — pithy reverberations that seem to say, “We’re still here!” Each age has its mind, distilled into gesture and sound.

{via Mental Floss}