A Graphic Design Hot Take: Form and Function are the Same

In the spirit of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes series, I have a graphic design hot take:

The “Form vs. Function” argument is stupid—they’re the same thing!

Let me explain.

Imagine a young girl’s birthday party. Really take a second to picture it—how is the table and room decorated? Who’s at the party? What are they doing? And most importantly, what does the cake look like?

If you answered “an undecorated blob of chocolate/ice cream/whatever,” congratulations, you don’t understand children.

Obviously the cake is decorated, right? And the decoration FUNCTIONS. Try giving a princess-obsessed young girl, for example, the choice between a plain cake and one decorated with her favorite Disney princess, or a unicorn, etc. Other things being equal, she’ll choose the decorated one every single time (she might even choose a flavor she doesn’t like as much if it has her favorite character on it).

Which one is better for a young girl's birthday? (Images courtesy of Freepik.com)

How do the aesthetics function in this example? Well, if you’re a cakemaker, you better take decoration seriously. Focusing solely on “function” by, let’s say, only caring about the flavor profile or nutritional content of your cakes, or any other "objective" metric, will put you out of business really fast.

Let’s take an opposite example.

Say you’re a weapons manufacturer. Would you decorate your guns with candy or princesses? Why not? Still think that aesthetics don’t have a function?

Image courtesy of Freepik.com

Now, imagine something prototypically “functional,” like a handsaw. What is the grip made out of? Wood or plastic? How is it shaped, does it fit your hand well? How large is the blade? What’s it made out of, and how does it capture the light? How does it feel to cut wood with it? Is there visible branding?

Images courtesy of Freepik.com

These are both functions and aesthetic choices that a designer can make to shape a person’s experience.

My point is, it’s not a binary; it’s a spectrum. Some decisions lean more towards function, others towards aesthetics, but as a whole, they’re inseparable: two parts of a greater whole.

It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes—you can choose to ignore fashion or embrace it, but either way, what you wear is going to tell people something about who you are. God forbid you choose to go without.

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The form vs. function debate has been going on for a long time in the field of graphic design and the arts in general. An early example: Beatrice Warde’s The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible (1933) argues that typesetting should be invisible to the reader. She values function over form, decrying that “many of the fine arts are even now floundering in self-conscious and maudlin experiments.”

The Crystal Goblet: 16 Essays on Typography by Beatrice Warde

The thing is, she is an excellent writer, and her turns of phrase are sharp and delightful. Even beautiful. Wait, am I responding to their form, or their function? I’d argue both.

Again, to take an opposite example, consider David Carson, the poster child of 90s grunge design aesthetics, and one who has had his fair share of accusations of prioritizing “form over function.” Many of his layouts are nearly (or completely) unreadable.

Courtesy of davidcarsondesign.com

But Carson vehemently disagrees that his work’s aesthetics somehow obscure or overshadow the content. In his own words:

“Don’t mistake legibility for communication.” “You can’t not communicate.”

I could go on—this topic is a deep rabbit hole—but I’ll end it here and repeat: form and function are the same. It’s your job as a designer to decide which takes precedence in a given context, or if they should be considered equally. Do you 100% agree?