I just had a somewhat lively conversation with a friend who basically implied that form is not necessarily relevant to people, what matters is substance. At first one would tend to agree – in fact I did. But only for a split second.

One thing that has defined the luxury industry for decades, and in some cases centuries, is its obsession to consistently merge form and function, look and feel, concept and execution. Creativity without boundaries can be explosive, and richer, but without the proper frame to define and communicate it when presented to a virgin eye, creativity tends to engage people the wrong way: with oooos and aaaas that reflect interest and excitement. But most often, unframed creativity will be lost in translation and remain in the realm of the exciting, as well as the unknown.

Imagine one of George Ballanchine’s troupes (the great choreographer) offered to “let creativity flow” without structure. You end up with an amalgamate of lost gestures without meaning – or purpose. It doesn’t make any sense.

This is particularly true with the Internet. There are extensive studies on usability and the effect of developing UIs (user interfaces) that are as creative as the content they frame. We don’t need to cover them here but very simply put: refreshing, new and daring is good, overly creative is bad – very much so. And creating new forms of interfaces or non-intuitive navigations (often referred to in the business as “mystery meat navigation”) can have disastrous implications on content.

Bottom line: form is not only of value to function – it is fundamentally connected to it and all efforts should be provided to consistently excel in both areas while avoiding pushing one to the detriment of the other.