Wabi-Sabi as a design approach for Web 2.0

A few weeks ago we blogged here about Wabi-Sabi and the elegance of imperfection. For hundreds of years, Japan's dominant aesthetic has been Wabi Sabi, which values the impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete. You know wabi sabi, if you've ever been to Japan or seen Japanese design--it's the rationale behind the mottled, asymmetric design in traditional houses, pottery, and gardens. The artisan's telltale traces are left as is, rather than buffed away; works are meant to mimic the random hand of nature.As we said in the earlier article, perhaps the most obvious example of the acceptance of this concept on the current web is the explosive popularity of such memes as Wiki, blogs and social sites where acceptance of the state of ongoing imperfection and evolution is not only present, but is fundamental to the medium. Below is a useful infographic that attempts to explain its implications to web design. The most important "take away" for me is:

"Wabi-Sabi acknowledges that just as it is important to know when to make choices, it is also important to know when not to make choices, but to let things be."

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Coincidentally, this year at Milan's Furniture Fair, that trend is on full display. I stumbled across some fascinatingly beautiful images from the show and will share a couple here: