Jerry Brito

The substance of Postrel

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th substance of style Just came back from seeing Virginia Postrel speak at AEI about her new book, The Substance of Style. The talk was good and summarized all that I’ve read of it, the first 50 pages, which makes me wonder what the other 200 pages are about. Her thesis seems to be an obvious observation studied in detail: that on the margin humans have always valued aesthetics, but we want big amounts of it on the margin now because we’re at a stage of development were function, quality, and low price are givens. This leads to mass differentiation of products (i.e. 100 different kinds of toothbrush at any drug store), which is made possible by advances in manufacturing, logistics, and credit.

Kudos to Postrel for an almost impossible feat: a PowerPoint presentation that didn’t suck. Her slides actually complemented her talk and were never obstructive or distracting. People who understand design–especially graphic design–will know that this is quite an accomplishment.

Kudos to Johan Norberg for asking the question I didn’t have the guts to ask, and for asking it in the most polite way possible. He asked, “Who designed your book cover, and are you happy with it?” The bottom line is that it’s an ugly cover, but for a book about style and aesthetics, it’s terrible. She said the designer at Harper Collins designed it and that she was happy with it. But I don’t know. I think she was biting her tongue or at least not happy that question was asked.

So far I’m really enjoying the book. I’ll write a review about it and tell you more. I’ll probably do so after we discuss it in what has now been dubbed ‘the blogger book club.’

Sep 9, 2003 | Comments