“Ahead of its time” is a description applied with the benefit of hindsight, and there are certainly plenty of examples from the art world of forward-thinking experimentation causing developmental shockwaves, even if most critics recoiled in horror at the time. How about Picasso’s The Young Ladies of Avignon, instrumental in the birth of cubism, cited by the authors of an intriguing new book as a prime example? While artistic deviance, even when adjudged ugliness, is usually accepted, design doesn’t get away so easily. If a product is ugly, it is bad, right?

Pretty Ugly – Visual Rebellion in Design argues not, contending that subversive design has just as important a role to play in moving art forward as people like Picasso did when he got his ruler out to paint nudes. Published by Gestalten, the book looks at the creatives breaking with convention, and how the functional imperative of design has impacted on its direction in all aspects of the applied disciplines, art and photography. Maybe your auntie’s hideous sofa wasn’t such a crime after all…

Pretty Ugly, Visual Rebellion in Design
Published by Gestalten