Many architects and designers, when talked down from the theoretical towers of “sculptural forms” and “floating volumes” and made to speak of their craft in humbler terms, are apt to use a phrase as naive as it is loaded: “good design.” It suggests such an apparent universality that any of us should be able to spot it. But implicit in “good design” is a system of values, aesthetics, and objects that demonstrate that the seemingly innocuous little term is anything but. Nowhere is the idiom as alive and well is in the realm of modern design, which wants to suggest–formally, stylistically, and most importantly, commercially–that the two might just be synonymous.
from the opening paragraph to a wonderful essay by Aaron Britt in the current issue of Dwell