A notional design studio. — Ethan Marcotte

Throughout the text, there’s a single-minded emphasis on aesthetics over design. We’ve already seen that in the studio’s disregard for the page’s weight and accessibility — and now we’re seeing it carried through the page’s text. Design for this “national studio” is about surface-level signals of “experience” and “beauty,” instead of the messy, iterative, imperfect work involved in designing something for people. When this “national studio,” and the administration that created it, tells us it wants to create “an experience that projects a level of excellence for our nation”? That’s aesthetics with a nationalistic twist, and we should take them at their word.

Ethan hits on something here. This administration (and this movement as a whole) is all about surface. The aesthetic over the underlying content. The easy soundbyte over the nuanced content underneath.

They scream something (in reality, Trump screams something incoherent) at a rally or come out with random phrases at press conferences that get their base clapping and cheering. And yet, the work (the sometimes extremely hard work) is left to someone else to figure out.

Are those people qualified?

Who knows?!

Are they ever going to finish what the message said they would?

Who knows?!

And to the majority of the people who are delivering said message (or those receiving it) does it really matter? Do they care if the work behind the scenes gets done?

I don’t know that they do.

They want to cheer line.

They want to look good on TV.

They want the appearance.

That’s all.