Hundertwasser (1928 - 2000) was an Austrian painter, printmaker, architect (he was most famous for being an architect), and a radical weirdo (pretty famous for being a radical weirdo).
He was a hardcore environmentalist and egalitarian before either of those things were cool.
All of his building designs incorporate some sort of green space, either on the roof, or in interior courtyards. He invented a kind of composting toilet that uses aquatic plants to purify the wastewater. He wrote a manifesto about how trees have the right to inhabit his buildings just as much as people do. He pivoted from painting to printmaking because he was offended by the art market's fetishization & commodification of the "unique object."
He wanted to get his images out into the hands of the people, so he started making copies.
Look at these paintings, poster designs, and prints.
Hundertwasser thought printmaking was a more democratic form of art than painting.
It allowed mass distribution of his images, and also allowed Hundertwasser to tinker with and iterate on his designs.
In collaboration with elite printmaking ateliers across Japan, he tested out different color palettes and experimented with metallic inks, gradients, and gold foil.
Hundertwasser was definitely a Maximalist.
Even though he has a fairly flat, graphic sensibility, every one of his creations erupts with color and pattern and texture.
Historically I tend to be more of a minimalist when it comes to my design work, because I prioritize clarity and communication of the message over catching eyes.
And I think for web design, especially for e-commerce websites that customers need to be able to USE, navigability is paramount, and clarity is paramount for navigability.
But also, as Hundertwasser said:
"The straight line is godless and immoral."
What he meant was that the default rectilinear cubes and boxes of our built environment transform us, over time, into people who can only think in boxes. People who can only fit inside boxes, live inside boxes. Straight lines are the easy, default choice. They are soulless. They turn our brains and hearts off.
It's pretty hard to get away from boxes in web design.
CSS Box Model! It's literally in the name!
But I think, once I know more about what I'm doing, I would like to try making designs and websites that are not so boxy. Not so reliant on straight lines. I'd like to make websites that are weirder, more experimental, and more playful places to inhabit.
I'm looking forward to figuring out how.
The End
thanks for reading :)