When “Too Much” is Really Too Much.

One can easily sit and ponder on the following question: can design ever be considered too excessive, too over the top, or to put into basic terms – can design ever be “too much?” When comparing designs on a spectrum – with the concept of minimalism at one end and the concept of baroque at the opposite end – is it possible for design to ever exceed its limitations? Despite the common ideal of “more is better,” sometimes overly excessive designs are just as unacceptable as the commonly misused and grammatically incorrect phrase “more better.” On that note, too much in a design does not necessarily lead to better things. An example of this is seen in the baroque designs that were customary in Europe, especially during the seventeenth century. Anything designed in the baroque style – architecture, artwork, or music – was extremely ornamented beyond necessary means. Like all design, however, the baroque design did have a functional purpose: to portray wealth or status. This can be seen in the baroque-designed construction of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Austria, which was built in honor of a triumphant war hero [left picture below]. Also, baroque-designed pieces of art were also seen as being unnecessarily excessive and pompous, such as crowns used by past Austrian rulers [right picture below].

(Personal photos)

Returning to the design/creative purpose – thinking, looking, doing, criticism, and doing again – the style of baroque went through this process as well. Baroque designs were brought into society, were criticized, and eventually were somewhat brought back to society through the renewed form of neo-baroque, which was basically a modernistic twist on the original baroque design.