The Importance of Aesthetics
Written By: Erin Stenson
The phrase “aesthetically pleasing” has become a common term recently, but what does it mean? How does it relate to the world today?
Aesthetics is a broad field of psychology that caters to one’s senses and is essential to business, marketing, mental health, and human development.
The human brain always desires rises in psychological activity. This is referred to as stimulation. When someone sees something that is pleasing to the senses, or “aesthetically pleasing”, it stimulates the brain.
This stimulation is everywhere which makes it essential to many aspects of life. A huge part of this is in business. If a company wants to make a good selling product they have to focus on appealing to the senses.
This is particularly seen in visual stimulus through ideas like the Halo effect: the initial assessment a person makes of another person, place, or thing upon first sight that will make them assume other information about the person, place, or thing. In aesthetics, this appeal makes a person assume that something that looks aesthetically pleasing has many other good qualities to it.
In order to have a good visual appeal that will create a positive initial assessment of a product, it needs to hold many details of design in it. These are nice fitting colors, patterns, texture, weight, balance, and shape.
This series of design details create rise to the idea of pleasure vs practicality in business as well. People are more likely to buy a product that they like to look at than they are to buy a less pleasing product, and this usually comes at no matter the quality of it. A business that sells aesthetically pleasing products can quickly boom in sales while a business that sells the same product but focuses on its practicality might not sell as much, even though their product works better.
This also applies to in-store displays. Someone’s more likely to an item they want to buy if it’s arranged in a nice way, but, if it wasn’t, they might not have even looked at the display.
If a store continuously arranges themselves well and its customers are pleased with the experience, they’re likely to come back. This builds up brand loyalty. Brands who have so much support because of their presentation gain a constant stream of money and support, while keeping customers from shopping elsewhere.
Now, past its relevance in business, why are aesthetics a popular topic today?
Aesthetics have actually always existed but have grown in popularity over time. Plato suggested the importance of summetria, or a good balance/ratio of parts, in his writing. Aristotle then named summetria one of the chief forms of beauty. This continued to develop but it wasn’t until the 18th century that systematic aesthetics were officially founded by Alexander Baumgarten, followed by him coining the term.
Since then aesthetics have grown in popularity even more. Through the development of the 20th and 21st centuries, the average yearly income has grown heavily. Along with this, products people constantly use have been produced for so long that the producers are well accustomed to the production process and prices of those items have fallen. As many people have settled into these more comfortable and affordable lifestyles, they have more availability to buy aesthetically pleasing products.
And, even in the case where someone is low on money, they’re likely to still buy an aesthetically pleasing item. Due to the recent positivity, self-care, and mental health movements, the idea of pleasure vs practicality is more relevant than ever.
An important part of aesthetics is that they generate stimulation but also positive feelings in a person. When someone buys a product they like they are more likely to use it often and take care of it. This can help people control their lives, establish routine, and manifest feelings of accomplishment, which all benefit one’s mental state of being. People have begun to notice this and are acting accordingly, meaning that they often fall into the pleasure category of purchases, even when it’s not helpful to a budget.
There’s a great example of this in a popular Chinese proverb: “If you only have two pennies in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.” People, even in a tough financial situation, will want to buy what pleases them and makes them happy, even if they have to buy less. This is a distinct difference from years past where people would mainly buy off of practicality; whether from lack of money, expectations, or just wanting to make sure they have long-lasting purchases.
This importance of aesthetics in business, as well as mental awareness, has been easily seen in recent years. Both of those areas, have grown tremendously and can be easily represented through simple aesthetic examples.
Overall, in answer to the confusion about the importance of aesthetics: Aesthetics are relevant today because they explain ideas of pleasure, mental health, business, and design at their base levels: how they appeal to the brain and affect people.
