Good or bad.

I had a thought today*, I was trying to decide how I come to decisions on whether I find something to be of good or bad design. good or bad aesthetic. good or bad composition. good or bad hairpiece. good or bad anything, really. ('good or bad' in this case are probably not the most correct words, but my point essentially is of opposing positive and negative values, with nothing left in-between)

Do I analyze said thing until I come to an opinion? Or is it something purely automatic?

Sometimes I cannot tell if I love or hate something. Sometimes I can literally not know how I 'feel' about a particular thing. How is that possible? To not know or have a standing either way? Every time I pass by the 3rd year area to go to the ID shop, there is a chair I look at every single time. It is being designed by a group of students. I can't decide whether It is beautiful or average. I have a thought about it with every pass. Perhaps there is a sense of analyzing the constituents that make up the whole of a thing, looking at what parts are good and what parts are bad, and then trying to lever whether one is outweighing the other. So, maybe it is not that we don't feel either good or bad, but both at the same time? 

The angle of the wood is pleasing**, the grain of the wood is pleasing, the backrest is pleasing, all of these things I recognize to be pleasing without even thinking about it. As a whole, the chair is not pleasing. I am neutral on the chair itself. It must be because the negatives are canceling out the positives. I must be noticing all the things I love and hate about it automatically, in terms of components, and am not able to conclude that I feel either way about the chair as a whole. 

If in-fact I am making automatic decisions about what I like and not like, what then is causing me to be so sure so quickly? My feeling is that, every time I am exposed to something that I have to form an opinion about, I either try to fit it into a former stereotype or compare to a previous model. 

I love the angle of the wood because it reminds me of miter joinery (which I love, and I'm sure miter joinery reminds me of something else that I love). The grain I love because it is the same grain as in my favorite 70s chair design. I hate the type of wood because it reminds me of the home-made porch furniture at my friend's place. I hate the length of the seat pan because I hate how people's thighs look as soon as they reach the edge.

I'm sure everything we make opinions on are based on experiences. Alot of people share similar experiences, which I'm sure is why everyone hates the 80s patterning on Styrofoam cups and RV caravans. And loves asymmetrical san-serif typography.

*one of many

**45 degree miter cuts are pleasing in all cases