How? over What?

Whoever said, “Never judge a book by its cover,” was wrong.

True, one should not base his/her entire judgment of anything on the way it is presented, but it is impossible to just ignore presentation altogether. Authors, artists, architects, speakers, businesspeople and advertisers are just a few of the types of people who consciously think about the way they are crafting their product and how it will influence their audience. We all do to some degree.

For example, I could introduce myself in two very different ways:

1.     Hello. My name is Anya Agrawal, and I am a high school senior in the Midwest with interests in painting, biology and tennis.

2.     Namaste! My name is Anya Agrawal and I am finally finishing my time in the 4-year pressure cooker most people call “high school”. Life in the Midwest, or the “Land of Flatness”, is not always the most exciting time, but I have found that by immersing myself in art, squinting behind a microscope or nailing a good backhand down the line, I can keep my mind and body whirring.

Both introductions had the exact same content, so what was the difference? Of course, the second one was much longer, but it was what made it longer that really matters. While the first introduction was fragmented and dry, the second was fresh and vibrant with a single thread of my personal voice running through it from beginning to end. And, no doubt, it is the second introduction that will make readers more inclined to stay interested in what I have to say.

This is what fascinates me. How the things most of us do with the least amount of thought, like how we phrase an introduction, where we put paragraph breaks, how many pronouns we include, or how we make use of text font and graphics can say the most about us. Transitively, the small things an audience subconsciously notices about a product says a lot about that audience.

So, it is the study of this very interplay—the mutualistic relationship between the human mind and the structure and design of the things it creates—that will be the subject of my blog. I will dig and dig and dig through literature, furniture and housing catalogues, media snippets and much more to try to answer the essential questions: Just how does this relationship work? How deep does it go? And in what ways has it impacted us and the world we live in?

Instead of thinking inside or outside of the box, let's examine the box itself.