As a UX/UI designer, I love exploring various design disciplines and borrowing something useful to improve my own work. I was always fascinated with Japanese aesthetics and philosophy, so I decided to share with you some of the things I learned from my explorations. There is some history in this article because I feel like it is important to know how these ideas came into existence to truly appreciate them. Every section starts with a short history, and then I apply it to web design and provide some recommendations.

Asymmetry

Asymmetry or irregularity wasn’t always considered beautiful in Japanese aesthetics. The love for it came from wabi-tea ceremonies during a very dark period in Japanese history. This period is referred to as the Sengoku era (1466–1598) and can be thought of as the Japanese equivalent of the Dark Ages in Europe. Wabi-tea was born out of the despair and chaos caused by the reality of war. These tea ceremonies were held in very modest and small rooms because of the destruction brought by continuous warfare of that period. Even the utensils were often broken, and so people had to improvise with what they had. However, before the inception of the Wabi-tea, the dominant aesthetic was symmetrically perfect and smooth objects derived from the Chinese approach. Wabi-tea objects, on the other hand, with their rough, irregular, and asymmetrical features, offered the “aesthetic other.” The “aesthetic other,” a term coined by Leonard Cohen in his book Wabi-Sabi: Further Thoughts, in this case, means going against the prevailing aesthetic rules. …