The rewards of restoring a sense of whimsy to the world
Surprises in design help foster an open mind, so embrace the quirky and the weird, writes designer and author Ingrid Fetell Lee
Ihad lived much of my life behind good taste’s high walls.
But the god of good taste demands sacrifices, and it’s always the weird, quirky, awkward parts of ourselves that are first to be thrown on the pyre. Yet the weird, quirky, awkward parts are where the surprises lie and, therefore, a great deal of joy. The flamingo, for example, is an improbable bird, with its outlandish pink colour, bendy neck, and toothpick legs. While many birds are endearing, the quirky flamingo is the only one to have been mass-produced in plastic and scattered across thousands of suburban front lawns. Similarly, the ballshaped allium is a strange flower, the first I would plant if I had a garden. With its giant, fluffy head resting atop a slender stem, it looks more like a plant from a Dr Seuss book than a real one. Perhaps the best illustration of the joy of quirkiness is the good oldfashioned dog show. I caught one on TV recently and was struck by the way the voices of the commentators changed when different dogs were in the ring. The sleek, flawless breeds drew serious commendation, as if the announcers were discussing paintings in a gallery. But for the lovable oddballs – the absurdly fluffy Tibetan mastiff; the squat corgi, legs whirring like mad to keep up with its handler; and the mop-like komondor, its eyes hidden under heaps of dreadlocks – their voices brightened, as if they were smiling.
While good taste wants things to be simple and normal, joy thrives out on the edges of the bell curve. It disrupts our expectations of how things should look and behave. It has a rebellious insouciance, and I wondered what it might mean to add more of this offbeat spirit to our lives. I didn’t have a ready answer, but I had an idea of where to look.
Starting in the mid1990s, a burgeoning design movement took root in the Netherlands that gleefully challenged established conventions around furniture and decorative objects.
Full of verve and unbridled inventiveness, Dutch designers began pushing and pulling at traditional forms, playing with our expectations of scale and proportion in whimsical ways. A lamp or a vase might become huge, the largest thing in the room, while a table might shrink down so small as to feel elfish. Old wooden chairs were yoked together with elastic sheaths, yielding surprising new silhouettes. Vases and urns were cast in silicone instead of ceramic, resulting in vessels that resembled traditional Dutch pottery but could be dropped without breaking.
For designers, this was an electric time. After years of pumping out refined and tasteful furniture, the industry was being poked full of holes and a fresh wind was blowing through it. “The thing you call surprise – some people call it wit, some people call it humour – I’d call it lightness,” says Marcel Wanders, Dutch designer and founder of the furnishings brand Moooi (“beautiful” in Dutch, with an extra o for emphasis).
Wanders is responsible for some of the movement’s most striking creations. Describing his designs is a bit like trying to explain objects that appear in one’s dreams. Take, for example, one of his signature pieces, the Knotted Chair. The chair resembles the net of a hammock, made of rope tied in an intricate macramé pattern. But unlike a hammock, it isn’t just the seat that is woven. The whole chair is made of rope, even the legs. The first time I came across one, I bent down to look underneath it. There were no wood braces, no hidden steel supports. It wasn’t at all clear how the chair was holding itself up. I sank into it, holding my breath. The chair held my weight easily. It felt solid, yet I looked like I was floating in midair. In fact, the flimsy looking rope had a carbon core wrapped in aramid fibres, a strong synthetic material used by the military for body armour and for the casing that surrounds a jet engine. After being knotted, the rope was dipped in epoxy resin to stiffen it into the shape of a chair. It was as solid as any chair made out of wood or metal, yet it continued to intrigue me long after I’d figured out its secret. I soon learned there’s a method to Wanders’ madness. “If you look at one of my pieces, there are usually two things present,” he said. “One, it’s kind of related to something you know. If it is a chair, it’s got four legs.” He paused, smiling wryly, “I don’t do chairs with 18 legs. I do things that in a way are familiar to you, that you can recognise from afar. I first make you feel comfortable. But then there’s something...,” and here he made a noise like a car stopping short, and his eyes flashed as he gestured an abrupt left turn with his hand. “Something a little weird, something that surprises. We call that an unexpected welcome. It is a bit of a surprise, but it’s a welcome surprise. It is a way that we instill a sense of lightness in products.”
The unexpected welcome is a contradiction, a tension that pulls the mind in opposite directions: between the strange and the familiar. Pure strangeness can be alienating on its own. But weird becomes wonderful when it is tethered to an element we recognise.
The flamingo delights us because for all its peculiarity, it is still a bird with two wings, a beak, and feathers. Its “birdness” is a reference point by which we can measure its eccentricity. Similarly, we measure things in our surroundings against the yardstick of our own bodies, so giant lamps or miniature cupcakes transform our sense of ourselves, making us feel like Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole or Gulliver among the Lilliputians. By nestling his wild ideas in a mantle of familiarity, Wanders takes us on fantastic voyages while simultaneously anchoring us on safe ground. Of course, objects don’t need to be as wild as those of Wanders’ imagination. Slight asymmetries, or small adjustments to proportions, like those common in handcrafted objects, can create a gentle quirkiness that makes the surprise aesthetic more accessible for every day.
I soon realised that this simple idea could take us far beyond creating delightful moments in our homes. It could also challenge stereotypes and preconceptions in a joyful way. The contradictions inherent in the unexpected welcome trigger what psychologists call a need for accommodation. Surprises puncture our worldview, forcing us to reconcile new information with previously held beliefs. When we’re stressed or anxious, we become less tolerant of ambiguity and risk, which in turn makes us more likely to reject things that are strange, offbeat, or new. But in a state of joy, our mind-set becomes more fluid and more accepting of difference.
All children live in a world rich with surprises. Each new thing, no matter how ordinary, inspires a sense of wonder and delight. But novelty naturally declines with age, and our surroundings begin to dull with familiarity. Psychologists call this phenomenon hedonic adaptation.
By restoring a sense of whimsy and unpredictability to our surroundings, small bursts of surprise also change our relationship to the world as
In a state of joy, our mind-set becomes more fluid and more accepting of difference
a whole. Surprise destabilises us a little, just enough to introduce a new idea or a different perspective. It brings back a bit of that childlike freshness. By snapping us out of our habitual thought patterns, a small surprise can reset our capacity for joy and allow us to see with new eyes.
● This is an edited extract from Ingrid Fetell Lee’s new book, Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, published by Rider at £20, out now.