Develop Aesthetic intelligence

[integral]

Worked as a web designer for many years and you always end up working with some of your clients who have horrendous taste, and they gravitate towards things that convert really badly. They do not understand how a thing makes them feel and the level of beauty something is at.

You might think this is completely subjective. And it's not. You can have different categories of things, but they will always be a hierarchy from a lower end of aesthetics to a higher end of aesthetics.

If you have super low aesthetic taste, you're deeply out of tune with how things make you feel and you have huge gaps in your sense making. I'm not exactly sure why this is the case but it's as clear as day when you interact with people they're aesthetic Intelligence closely relates to their level of consciousness.

Your level of consciousness and your aesthetic intelligence are closely connected.

The more conscious you are the finer you could see every aesthetic qualities to something.

There's many insights here that I haven't had yet to really understand why a person's level of consciousness is so directly linked to aesthetics. 

The most annoying thing is you can never communicate to them that they're wrong. 😑 LMAO

Edited Thursday at 07:09 PM by integral

[Rilles]

Aesthetic value also seems to connect with symbolic understanding, to understand that something represents what its not is huge in any form of art, which is why someone can look at abstract art and love it while another dude will say “its just a banana, whats the point?”.

[Eskilon]

50 minutes ago, integral said:

You might think this is completely subjective. And it's not.

it is, and you cannot prove otherwise. 

 

50 minutes ago, integral said:

You can have different categories of things, but they will always be a hierarchy from a lower end of aesthetics to a higher end of aesthetics.

Those hierarchies are relative things and from a certain point of view.

----

If you been doing this work for some time it does seem that there are higher and lower forms of aesthetics, but for me thats just your ego leaking lol

Edited Thursday at 07:56 PM by Eskilon

[LastThursday]

Thing is, aesthetic value has a large dollop of current fashion built into it. So if you remove that what are you left with?

If you are conscious enough (whatever that means), then you will find start finding aesthetic value in everything, because you realise that beauty is everywhere and in everything, and taste goes out the window.

There are rules for good composition, and balance and framing and subject matter, and those rules change over time.

[integral]

Within each relative type of aesthetic, there's higher and lower forms of aesthetic.

There has to be a distinction being made between type and higher/lower.

We are not in the absolute domain.

There's a difference between young and old. Sure, if you take LSD, you could make anything look good, but thats not the truth.

This is finite and there are limits.

Torture is not love in the finite only in the absolute.

Edited Thursday at 11:59 PM by integral

[CARDOZZO]

What do you think about retrofuturism, art deco, Braun product design?

[integral]

4 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

What do you think about retrofuturism, art deco, Braun product design?

These are types. Each has a way of doing them well or poorly. Less or more consciously.

Quality is happening.

Edited yesterday at 12:21 AM by integral

[integral]

Check this video reddit Random niche done well. 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by integral

[Leo Gura]

Yes, for sure this is a thing.

Great taste is rare. Which is why most people can't be artists.

Artist needs superb taste.

I have been developing my taste and eye for 25 years.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[No1Here2c]

@Leo Gura what methods have you personally employed to refine your aesthetic sense?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

On 16/01/2026 at 10:34 AM, LastThursday said:

Thing is, aesthetic value has a large dollop of current fashion built into it. So if you remove that what are you left with?

If you are conscious enough (whatever that means), then you will find start finding aesthetic value in everything, because you realise that beauty is everywhere and in everything, and taste goes out the window.

There are rules for good composition, and balance and framing and subject matter, and those rules change over time.

How would you seperate style vs trend? I would argue aesthetics have a style. Trends are something totally seperate and have no requirement to be aesthetic.

I am an artist. Oil painter and trained in fine arts from scratch, from an old-school art master painter. Studied first principles. Pencil only for 10 years, then pen, then colours, then watercolour > acrylic > oil etc

I haven't noticed rules for good, balanced composition change. Usually principles such us; rule of thirds, vanishing points, light/dark grade, focal point etc all follow a similar theme that contributes to 'aesthetic' appearance.

Across any medium there is usually a consistent pattern of interplay of these compositional elements, or some unusual variation of. But they don't really change. The principal is there in a new configuration.

[Leo Gura]

25 minutes ago, No1Here2c said:

@Leo Gura what methods have you personally employed to refine your aesthetic sense?

Lots of looking at images and contemplation of them.

[No1Here2c]

I wonder what type of variations exist between your and my application of contemplation for the purpose of aesthetic refinement.

I would consider myself relatively underdeveloped, and I can imagine your process looks much more clean and effective than mine. Although the general procedure does sound to be the same.

Edited 5 hours ago by No1Here2c

[No1Here2c]

This same phenomenon must exist in not just the visual realm, but the realm of sounds and music right?

Isn't it apparent that one's Level of Consciousness has a direct correlation on what types of musical and sonic content any given person enjoys?

Edited 5 hours ago by No1Here2c

[Leo Gura]

29 minutes ago, No1Here2c said:

I can imagine your process looks much more clean and effective than mine. 

No, I don't have any special process, and lately I don't do much of that. I used to do it more when I did more graphic design.

One tip is to build up large libraries of your own top images. Then study those libraries.

[gengar]

Taste is not everything though, although it is the majority of what makes art good.

Technique is also crucial, not only for the ability to make art in the first place, but because taste is also in the fingers itself, not just the brain. Your fingers are intelligent and contain their own artistic taste that can never be developed with just mental, non-manual taste development.
By spending hours improvising on the piano for example your fingers will be able to create melodies that you could never make up by drawing them on a digital music program for example.

[gengar]

24 minutes ago, No1Here2c said:

This same phenomenon must exist in not just the visual realm, but the realm of sounds and music right?

Isn't it apparent that one's Level of Consciousness has a direct correlation on what types of musical and sonic content any given person enjoys?

So what would you propose high consciousness people listen to?

[gengar]

On 16/01/2026 at 0:34 AM, LastThursday said:

Thing is, aesthetic value has a large dollop of current fashion built into it. So if you remove that what are you left with?

If you are conscious enough (whatever that means), then you will find start finding aesthetic value in everything, because you realise that beauty is everywhere and in everything, and taste goes out the window.

There are rules for good composition, and balance and framing and subject matter, and those rules change over time.

I disagree with your sneaky relativising of aesthetic principles. Just because God thinks a turd is beautiful doesn't mean that when I take a picture of a turd with my iphone its good art. It's not only about current fashion, but about much deeper psychological trends of the mind, "mesotrends" if you will.
 

[integral]

You can feel the amount of stress or enjoyment something has, this is the feeling that has to be noticed to understand high quality vs low quality.

But dont confuse this for preferences/type/niche.

Why is AI slope bad? Its a chinese nock off of the real thing, the quality is worse.

Ive given a website to a client and within a year i went back to check on it to be horified by the changes made. They tried to make changes to save cost on there own but they have no idea how colors work togetter.

Contemplate how colors work! 

Edited 3 hours ago by integral

[No1Here2c]

3 hours ago, gengar said:

So what would you propose high consciousness people listen to?

@gengar

Nothing at all

What need has the dead man for earthly pleasures?

Edited 1 hour ago by No1Here2c