Thanks to digital technology, designers can squeeze so many functions into such tiny containers that there is more computing power in a basic cellphone…than at NASA’s headquarters when it began in 1958. That is why the appearance of most digital products bears no relation to what they do.
Take the iPod Shuffle. How could you be expected to guess what that tiny metal box does by looking at it? There are no clues to suggest that it might play music. Like most other digital devices, the Shuffle is (literally) an inscrutable box of tricks. Apple’s designers conceived the latest model as a subtle joke on the demise of “form follows …” It is so small, half the size of its predecessor, that they could make it in the same shape as one of those pins that clip on to clothing. This means the Shuffle’s form does reflect one of its functions, albeit the very minor one of attaching itself to a jacket, but gives no hint as to its more important role of storing and playing hundreds of songs.
[ The Demise of ‘Form Follows Function’, in the New York Times ]
Most conceptual or fantastic ‘designs of the future’ have heralded this change for quite some time—generations, in fact. There seems to be a general assumption that, as humanity prospers and has time to focus on the creation of beautiful objects, designs will be streamlined. Forms will be functional, but cleverly so: designs will move from intuitive to intuiting. There are tons of examples of this:
- zeppelins
- the classic UFO ‘saucer’ design
- Eve from Wall-E
- lightsabers
- the Destination Moon spaceship
- the crazy flying fish ships from this 19th-century drawing
- The Star Trek Next Generation communicator pins
- Stephenson’s New Matter bolt, chord & sphere
Broadly speaking, it’s only in dystopian futures or societies (Terminator, Brazil, War of the Worlds, Alien, Blade Runner, Metropolis, Ghost in the Shell) that future objects are primarily functional. And usually they’re a visual indication of turmoil, indicating humanity hasn’t yet reached that state of happy utopian resource-sharing philosophical bliss that results in skylines like this.
