So maybe it’s all about what triggers us creatively?
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I love Make Noise’s branding/web site/typography and the look of their instruments/modules, I think it’s all gorgeous on an aesthetic level. But as a producer I am 100% someone who wants things to be clear and practical. If I were rich I’d buy the Make Noise standalone stuff just to look at it and fiddle around when I want to explore/be surprised/get lost. Sometimes when you realize what some of the glyphs mean it’s this “ah, that’s clever” kind of moment but not for all of them. Fortunately the market is full of options for people who don’t want that kind of abstract quality to their tools.
I think what annoys me more is the other side of the coin - interfaces that are technically “practical” but somehow also hideous. Fred’s Lab Töörö seems like an awesome and well-designed instrument, and everything on the panel is technically “clear”, but it’s so ugly to look at for me that looking at the Strega is like a massage for the eyes in comparison. Modal Skulpt is somewhere between, interface is trying to be creative yet structured but it really drove me nuts so I sold the thing.
Another thing that bothers me is obnoxious parameter names, like “throttle” and “spoiler” on some of the Endorphin.es stuff or, by far the most eye-roll-inducing, “balls” on the Vermona Kick Lancet and one or two other units I can’t remember.
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I love the design. It would make me want to use it. But im arty and love going to galleries. Another vote for Aesthetics over functionality 
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Yeah I definitely think personal preference is the most important part of all this! For both the designers and users of this stuff, I think everybody should do what they love and we’ll sort out the details from there.
It’s really difficult to design something simple/intuitive, and it’s also really difficult to design something beautiful/complex. Both are very worthy pursuits.
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i also feel this way a lot of the time, even though I’m usually utility-minded.
the ideal studio for me, if money is no object, is one that is full of both aesthetic-over-function and function-over-aesthetic pieces. there’s elegance and beauty on both sides!
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And there’s also simple/intuitive and beautiful, not to forget 
Where simple can be replaced by ‘fucntional’.
Waldorf Quantum comes to mind for instance.
I do agree with you that a creative interface can result in new ways of thinking and other approaches. I guess the line for me is that it shouldn’t be too far into form over function
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I think there is a nice balance to be had between creative design and usability and overall friendliness. I help a lot of people get into electronic music, so I know from experience that for someone starting out or thinking about starting out in the hardware domain that certain companies design language comes off more as needlessly gatekeeping rather than something funky that sparks interest and creativity. I feel like more boutique manufacturers can get away with it, as I’ve never run across someone who wants to start out on a Ciat Lonbarde instrument, but overall making a mass-market instrument whose quirk is that it is impossible to learn without knowing how it works already takes me back to the dark corners of the music industry, and it becomes more of an elitist Instagram prop than a friendly synth built to touch.
A really good example of a company who has a quirk all their own but is very beginner friendly is Teenage Engineering. I feel like the visual feedback of their displays helps a bunch in this regard but everything feels like it is carefully placed in their ecosystem rather than mindlessly thrown on a palette just to be ~weird~. Elektron recently has done it pretty well too in my opinion, and it shows in that in a under-serving synth rental place a friend of mine runs, both Teenage Engineering and Elektron gear (even the big ones!) get a lot more rentals and happy customers than from companies who may have a strong design language, but little care for the aura their design gives off.
Not to say I want everything to be the same or purely functional, just that it seems like the trend in eurorack is that people just make the most incomprehensible front plate possible for a otherwise boring module in order to get beard-scratching points when companies like Buchla managed to make much more complex machines that are at least color coded in what they do.
There is room to be weird, but it should come with intent, not just for the sake of being weird.
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I wholeheartedly agree
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I must admit, I really like the fact that some manufacturers/makers design and create synthesizers first and foremost to please themselves, and their customers second.
I think sound matters more than any other consideration. There are numerous gun owners/enthusiasts who are in love with the beauty of their weapons.
I think some things I find logical and easy other people might find irritating, and vice versa.
Generally I’m not a fan of menu diving, multi button combos, scrolling pages in digital imstruments, but that is only because most of them are not very well designed - or more probably designed how I like. I find Elektron gear to be my one of very few exceptions, but funnily enough I prefer the older style graphics - knob/value, rather than the visual filter/distortion/env etc.
Also stuff like Serge makes sense to me, it follows logic and design continuity, rather than random cool looking glyphs, and uses fairly inoffensive easily read fonts.
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Another thing I just remembered disliking, when software instruments, fx, DAWs etc started mimicking the look of real hardware, tacky and unnecessary yet still goes on today.
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Beautiful + simple/intuitive is my favorite!
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One of my biggest issues with plugins. Especially when companies take up needless space by adding rack ears or a big metal case. Most of the time I just add all the parameters to the ableton macro page and never look at the plugin. I really have no interest in how someone in the 60s had to EQ, because it definitely did not involve a mouse, a keyboard, or a midi controller! Seems this problem is much more of a epidemic since plugins are marketed for virtual vintage studios rather than someone actually trying to figure out what frequency they should dampen.
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Speaking of weird synth design.
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This is exactly why I build my eurorack systems focusing at 90% on one brand at a time, with sometime the addition of something that really opens up new options
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Let me argue more specifically why I think MN works and other similar styles do not. I think if you look at wogglebug & maths v1 vs current iterations you will see a company who learned to not be inscrutable for inscutable…ness’s? sake.
QPAS vs Noise Eng Cursus Iteritas
Name: QPAS seems weird but stands for “Quad Peak Animation System” - it is a filter that can have up to four resonant peaks which can be animated (each somewhat separately) - NE name is long and (fake?) latin that can give no hint to function w/o possibly a translation
Graphics: QPAS has normalizations laid out, entire signal flow can be seen on panel. NE has a bunch of random shaped blocks that go behind each other to holes at bottom.
Layout: QPAS has labels/holes near functionality which adds to the complexity of panel layout (I would believe), NE has all at bottom layout that follows knobs above pretty much in order but the graphics actually make this look more complicated that it is
Font: Ok the NE font is easier to read but MN is not impossible and goes with rest of design - but MN fonts/graphics are “weighted” better and the “Blocky” NE sections which are random (shape, size) and vary for aesthetic reason
“Symbology”: Absolutely no real in/out trigger/gate, etc… logic on NE - in fact some modules have triggers with “explosion” symbol around it, some do not, some have outs with similar symbol some have an arrow - MN: square blocks=cv attenuator, circles =trig/gate input, arrows in/out pretty self explanatory, etc… they even mark “unknown” inputs with the !! symbol
Attenuation: MN seem to have a far better qty of attenuation at destination which again adds to clutter to work around so I’m putting it in here
Sorry to pick on NE but I wanted to give a real example
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hell yeah, it’s soooooo annoying.
especially drawing uunnecessary elements, like rackmount screws and handles.
come on, computer screen is often overloaded with information, why overload it yet more with totally useless things?
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my absolute favorite is this one.
the owls are not what they seem.
however, it’s totally functional — just in its very own weird manner.
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I’m sure you could patch that
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I think the Makenoise aesthetic evokes a sense of mystery, complexity, and otherness which basically suggests unknown possibilities which stirs ones creative drive. I agree that it’s complicated to figure out but that creates an almost compulsive desire to figure it all out…atleast for me.