ILLUSTRATION: LESLEY BUCKINGHAM
Some of my friends don’t understand. I have a kitchen shelf crammed with seemingly random boxes, bottles and tins from around they world. Why? Because I love the colours and designs on their packaging. They are low-cost items I found on my travels and it brings me joy to look at them. Another daily source of joy for me is consciously choosing the colour, texture and shape of my crockery, even for a snack. While the accumulation of fancy material things isn’t the key to happiness, finding joy in what’s around us might be, and that’s the premise of this book. By identifying sources of everyday joy, we can include more of it in our lives.
Designer Ingrid Fetell Lee sets out what she calls 10 ‘aesthetics of joy’ – categories her research suggest are sources of joy: colour and light, lushness, nature, space, symmetry, sparkle, curves, blossoming and balance. But this book isn’t only for the creatively inclined. Who hasn’t been uplifted by the sight of a rainbow, a child playing with a colourful balloon, a burst of scented blossom or a happy song on the radio? Fetell Lee takes us on journeys to explore how each of these aesthetics play out, sharing examples large and small: from cities where specific features have been used to create spaces that attract people and help them connect, feel calm, learn and heal, to tiny ways individuals include joyful aesthetics in their everyday lives – visually, aurally and olfactorily.