Why do bland designs, whether it be cars or furniture or tech gadgets etc., tend to age better than striking adventurous designs which were more loved when they came out?
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Adventurous designs are made to show off. They’re mostly made on paper and, in a lot of cases, hand-made as concept pieces meant for shows. The point is to do something to shock you, not to be practical, and they may not be made in a way that makes them robust. In other words, if you try to use whatever it is in daily life it may not last very long. They also stick out. If you fill a room with 8 different things that are all meant to be shocking and adventurous, you don’t usually end up with a cohesive or pleasant sense that somebody designed the room or that things belong. It only works if the theme you’re going for is “a museum”.
Bland designs tend to be what we get when people focus on practicality. They don’t have extra parts they don’t need, and the parts they do have are more likely to fit together well. The objects tend to be robust and last longer. The simpler designs mean they are easier to mass produce which means they are cheaper even if they are made of sturdy materials. Since they aren’t meant to be striking or stick out, it’s easier to put a lot of them in a space and make it look cohesive and well-planned.
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