Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition
by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
115 MAYA
A strategy for determining the most commercially viable aesthetic for a design.
While some define design success in terms of aesthetics, others in terms of function, and still others in terms of usability, Raymond Loewy, the father of industrial design, defined success in terms of commercial performance — i.e., sales. In 1951, he proposed the Most Advanced Yet Acceptable (MAYA) principle, which asserts that the most advanced form of an object or environment that is still recognizable as something familiar will have the best prospects for commercial success. Loewy believed that aesthetic appeal was essentially a balancing act between two variables: familiarity and uniqueness — or, in modern psychological parlance, typicality and novelty ...
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