How to innovate visually?

Or why elegance is never out of fashion?

If we look back into the past imagery, movies, cloth designs, or even vehicles, the “classic ones” are always elegant. But what “elegant” means?
Basically it’s something that is neat, pleasing to the eye, even simple. Nowadays industries fall into the trap of becoming too complex, too baroque if you want. It happens to music, when the vocal performance is hidden between so much autotune and arrangements. Cloths brands are very susceptible to fail the simplicity test, especially when the fast fashion drives their creativity. And of course the visual medium is always in the tempting stage of throw every filter and effect the new technology has to offer.

But how artists managed to create elegance?

Maybe is a combination of good taste, knowledge and experience. Most of it could be learned, studying the periods of art, researching about techniques and most importantly failing at recreate it. Because nothing teach better than failure, and this is something any artist could identify.

Visual arts, like photography or cinematography, depends a lot in simplicity and elegance. Nothing is truly innovative in the art but a progression of the understanding of what makes something beautiful and elegant. And as many master of their craft could tells you, looking back is almost a requirement to advance. Not to copy from the styles of the past, but to break it’s rules and come up with something that could compete with it, and maintain what made them brilliant.