Too much of what passes for design now is theater. It's one thing to be eccentric- and by the way, most eccentrics tend to be rather well-educated people - and quite another to be a faddist, by which I mean someone who tries to conjure a totally foreign aesthetic in a misplaced environment.
Interpretation
Design should be genuine and suited to its environment, rather than simply following trends.
In this quote, Albert Hadley emphasizes the distinction between genuine creativity and mere trend-following in design. He critiques the tendency for design to become superficial or theatrical, arguing that true design should reflect both individuality and an understanding of context, rather than merely adopting fads that do not align with their surroundings.
In practice
In a design meeting to emphasize the importance of contextual design.
So many young decorators are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the results are sometimes very dubious. They're striving to do things that have never been done before. Quite often it is done without authority, without knowledge, and without a background in taste. They need to be educated about the past, and they need a richer vocabulary.
The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live.
Decorating is not about making stage sets, it's not about making pretty pictures for the magazines, it's really about creating a quality of life, a beauty that nourishes the soul.
Decoration is really about creating a quality of life, and a beauty in that life that nourishes the soul, that makes life beautiful.
The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional - the idea. That's what is original to you.
There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.
I wanted to share my doubts and my culinary, amorous, and cosmic experiences. So I wrote 'Like Water for Chocolate,' which is merely the reflection of who I am as a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter.
Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed.
And for the last three minutes on the wind of a windless day I have heard the sound of drums and flute.
Whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.
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