Aesthetics: Quantification and Deconstruction

Despite the advances in neuropsychology and codification of various determinants of aesthetics, aesthetics largely remains a nonquantifiable subjective aspect. Though, elements of grammar of aesthetics have been qualitatively defined, it is still not possible to describe the aesthetics in quantitative terms in the same way  as  we can describe the dynamics or acoustics of an industrial object. On the other hand, it forms one of the most important components of industrial design—especially, automobile design. This creates an anomaly where the large chunk of automobile design remains in the realm of mathematics, aesthetics remains out of its ambit. This creates a gaping hole in the material available on automobile design, which the book proposes to fill. Since, motorcycle has a far more complex visual aesthetics compared to a four-wheeler, as it is composed of several components as diverse as an engine to seat to wheels to windscreen whereas car is more or less a single object visually. So, motorcycle has been chosen as an object to deconstruct aesthetics in order to quantify it. This chapter takes the reader to a short visit through the book and explains what one should expect from the book.

The history of automobiles in the world has been closely linked to the churnings in contemporary societies and upheavals in the field of literature, fine arts, architecture, politics and of course, engineering and technology. The author has tried to explore these linkages by scanning the technological developments in the area of motorcycle evolutionary process. This chapter talks about motorcycles, their history and evolution in relation to their semantics and their cross-cultural significance.

Product planners have to capture the voice of the customer and disseminate the exact requirements to the designers. This chapter talks about various tools used by product planners and the difficulties faced by them in being unambiguous and objective. In short, it tries to explore, what will help them to specify the aesthetic requirement in objective and quantitative terms.

Styling designers have to convert the product requirement into design attributes, execute the styling in such a way as to fulfill the requirement and then convince the product planners and marketing that it meets the requirements. The major difficulty currently faced by them is that the requirements themselves are vague and subjective, which results in the whole styling process as vague and subjective. This chapter talks about the tools and practices currently followed by them and the difficulties faced by them.

Emotion has largely been a subject of art literature and psychology. Here, the author has developed a framework for objective description of emotions going through the historical developments in this area and explored the method and scales to quantify them. This chapter talks about the science of qualifying and quantifying emotions so that it can be used as tool for engineering designers.

This chapter deconstructs the mix of emotions to design attributes. It briefly describes the various factors which affect and generate the emotions in engineering objects, their relationship with emotions and the aspects governing them.

This book, in essence is not about outcomes but about a methodology to quantify emotions. This means, in effect, to establish constants and coefficients for calculating the emotion scores. But these constants are not actually constant and depend on the social and cultural environment. This chapter talks about the method to establish these constants and coefficients and calculate the emotion score for a motorcycle design.

The hardcore engineering of an automobile forms the major core of the emotion created by it. This chapter discusses the relationship between the engineering of an automobile and the emotions.

A motorcycle has various parts which impact its aesthetics directly. These parts are generally known as styling parts. This chapter discusses these parts, the different aspects of their form like space combinations, intersection of spaces, curvatures, etc., and their relationship with mix of emotions.

Color is an element of aesthetics which is as complex as it appears in simplicity. What adds to the complexity is its correlation with texture. This chapter discusses their mathematics and their relationship with emotion mix.

Unity of design and dynamism are intrinsic qualities of design which are the most important determinants of vehicle character. This chapter deconstructs these two design parameters into their individual elements, discusses the methodologies to quantify them, and explores their interrelationship which determines the emotion mix of a vehicle.

Graphics are additional elements of vehicle design where even their absence is also an important part of their design. This chapter deals with the arts, science, and mathematics of graphics and their impact on vehicle character.

The design principles and methodologies to deconstruct and synthesize have been applied to motorcycles and a case study has been presented in this chapter. The author has interpreted the results of the case study to test the efficacy of the methodology developed.

The relationship between design attributes and emotions is not a culture-independent entity. This makes the job of the book more difficult, where mathematics, engineering, and culture have to co-exist. This chapter deals with this difficult question and attempts to resolve it by engaging with the levers and mechanism of culture affecting the aesthetics and relating it to mathematical methods to synthesize the deconstructed elements in a cultural context.