Lee gives many examples for each of her ten aesthetics of joy. Some of them involve industrial or public places. Other suggestions are ideas we can use at home or in planning vacations. For Celebration, she discusses how dancing and music connect people. She also mentions large shiny helium balloons which I love, and confetti which I personally would avoid since I wouldn't feel joyful cleaning it up.

I'm thinking it would make a great coffee table book with more photos of the wild gardens, the confetti, the Bioscleave house (which btw *does* have furniture, just not in the main living room).

Today's Devotional

On the shifting baseline syndrome – what seems wild today is less wild that what seemed wild a generation ago In ‘Joyful’ Ingrid Fetell Lee looks at how certain things – like rainbows, polka dots and round objects – can cross demographic groups and bring joy. It’s clear that Lee has spent many hours researching this subject. She discusses many people – designers, architects etc who have incorporated joy into their work – there are no photos, so it’s best to keep Google available if you want to see what she’s writing about. She includes many personal stories of herself (and frequent mentions of her husband, Albert) as she travels far and wide experiencing joy. She really is thorough. Preferred human landscape – both to live in and see in paintings on our walls – there appears to be one in particular that is favored almost universally

The author, Ingrid Fetell Lee, is a designer offering a unique perspective on joy. Using research from psychology and neuroscience, she explores how various settings can promote different types of feelings (e.g., competitiveness, comfort, acceptance, sharing). These are interesting ideas and gave me much to think about.

Contents

IFL offers some concrete examples of the impact of design on behavior. A non-profit took on the task of repainting schools, to make them more stimulating and inviting. The results were eye-opening, both in attendance and performance metrics. I suppose it is possible that the schools thus impacted might have been self-selected, and might have improved anyway. I did not dig deeply into the report, but it does at least seem like a wonderful idea, and ther results were encouraging. Dorothy Draper (no relation to Don) is noted in Joyful for her attention to texture, vibrancy, and richness of interior environment, particularly in the resort hotel The Greenbrier in West Virginia Psych professors Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt write about awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion I am intrigued by the author’s comprehensive and thoughtful explanation and application of each aesthetic. Ingrid has over twelve years of experience in design and branding, most recently as Design Director of IDEO's New York office, having led design work for Target, Condé Nast, Eileen Fisher, American Express, Kate Spade, Diageo, Pepsico, and the US government, among others. She has been featured as an expert on design and joy by outlets such as The New York Times, Wired, PRI's Studio 360, CBC's Spark, Psychology Today, and Fast Company. She was a founding faculty member in the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her design work has been exhibited at imm Cologne, Germany.