Reminds me of that scene[1] from the Silicon Valley TV show where that designer was tasked to design a server box and he started the meeting showing random pictures to the CEO with some bongo drum soundtrack in order to "establish a common vocabulary" lol, or the brand manual of the infamous Pepsi logo redesign fail[2] full of made up geometrical nature BS stories that the agency pulled out of their ass to milk Pepsi, which I'm sure is what the satire form Silicon Valley was based on.
At this point, I think designers just operate on the basis of "a fool an his money are easily parted".
[1] https://youtu.be/qyLv1dQasaY?si=yUwQU-9EQL3QMxbi&t=6
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Design/comments/hspqgd/pepsi_logo_r...
It is all about fooling the viewer. Like for example seeing some run down old buildings in US or Eastern Europe will make people scoff, but if you show them similar looking run down buildings in South Mediterranean Europe or Japan they will be in awe. It's about perception.
>Design is subjective
No it isn't. Just like art and people's appearances, there's unanimously objective on what's beautiful and what's ugly.
The redesigned Pepsi logo is objectively worse, which is why it was so short lived and reverted back to the original design.
People who say there's no such thing as ugly design because it's al subjective are coping hard or trying to sell their design agency.
Neither of those things is true. Plenty of artistic movements have been both praised and derided, and many people have a "type" which influences who they do (or don't) find attractive.
As to idea that there's a universally agreed-upon definition of objectively pleasing design, I suggest you take a look at the work of the Memphis Group.
[0] https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...