JUST A STONE
Design, Art & Aesthetics
By Karim Mirza
One day, I decide to visit a place because I've heard there's an incredible sculpture there. A beautifully carved figure of a person who once lived in that town. I start travelling. Somewhere along the road, I see a milestone. It tells me that my destination is 21 kilometres away. I follow the direction and eventually reach the place. The town is beautiful. I walk around, explore the surroundings, and finally come across the sculpture I've travelled all that way to see. It's magnificent. The carving, the proportions, the details — everything draws me towards it. I take out my camera and start photographing it. I try different angles, find the right frame, notice how the light falls across the face, and capture a few photographs that look absolutely beautiful. That's the art I came to experience, and the aesthetics I tried to capture.
After walking around for a while, my legs begin to hurt. I look around and find a stone bench nearby. I sit down, take a breath, and look at the sculpture again. Eventually, I get up, return home, and look through the photographs I took that day.
Remove the milestone, and I might never find the destination. Remove the bench, and my journey becomes a little less comfortable. Remove the sculpture, and I lose the very reason I came there. Remove the aesthetics, and the sculpture may still carry its meaning, but the visual experience might be entirely different. Each element contributes something different. None has to replace the other. And that's how I look at my work as a creative. I don't want to create something merely because it looks beautiful. I want to understand what it needs to do, what it needs to communicate, what story it needs to tell, and how people should experience it.
Because sometimes, the most important thing in a creative experience isn't the thing everyone comes to admire. It's the little thing that quietly helps them get there, understand it, or stay a little longer.
Design solves. Communication guides. Art expresses. Aesthetics elevates the experience.
Someone carves it into a bench. It might not be beautiful. It might not win awards or attract people to photograph it. But five people can sit on it, rest their legs, and take a break. It serves a purpose. It solves a problem. That's design.
Now, someone carves another stone into a milestone, marking a distance and pointing towards a destination. It doesn't need to be beautiful either. It simply needs to communicate the right information. If it tells me that my destination is 21 kilometres away, it has done its job. That's communication through design.
And then, there's another block of rock, carved into the figure of a person who once lived there. The sculpture tells a story. It preserves a memory, honours a life, and gives people something to remember. That's art.
Now, imagine that sculpture is placed in a beautiful setting, illuminated with carefully positioned lights, surrounded by a thoughtfully designed landscape, and photographed from just the right angle. Suddenly, the entire experience becomes visually captivating. That's aesthetics.
Here's the interesting part, though. The bench doesn't need to be beautiful to remain useful. The milestone doesn't need to be artistic to communicate the distance. And the sculpture doesn't necessarily need beautiful lighting to tell its story.
Aesthetics changes with time. Artistic preferences change with generations. What looks beautiful today might feel outdated tomorrow. Trends come and go, and sometimes we value the presentation more than the thing itself.
But the bench is still a bench. People still sit on it. The milestone still shows the distance. People still follow it to reach their destination.
Their usefulness doesn't disappear just because nobody finds them beautiful.
Now, let's put all of this together in a little story.
© BIGCAT CREATIVE STUDIO
