Perfect snow: a beautiful white canvas on which to start afresh, a clean sheet on which to write ones new year’s resolutions, a quiet moment to make a plan. This year is going to see digital media regain momentum after a temporary setback and the internet will be lit up by the magic of universal love and broadband. I did all my Christmas shopping online and on the strength of this paper thin anecdotal evidence I confidently predict those fabled revenue streams will be delivering up more gold and funny smells than the three wise men.
But I’m troubled. How is it that my favourite places on the web, google, dictionary.com, streetmap etc, are almost entirely free from design as we know it? Doesn’t mean that as a digital designer I am wasting my time, or worse still other peoples?
And another thing; the snowman I made in Hyde Park in my lunch hour was covered with dead leaves and mud. I had to compete with snowball fighters and incontinent dogs and other sculptors for the best bits of virgin snow. On the way back the pavements were already grey with that slush that seems to crawl up your trouser leg and jump down your boots. After dark it’ll turn into black ice and make cycling home even more suicidal than usual.
This year I firmly resolve to do exactly the same things as last year, the same things that I have been doing for the last 20 years. Writing poetry and playing the curmudgeon. Pedalling to work every day but driving a 4 star gas guzzling 3.0 litre piece of historic scrap at the weekend. Designing web sites with all words and no pictures or just pictures with no captions. Being entirely digital but then spending excessive amounts on printing and postage. Structuring everything around rules and strict grids and then breaking the rules and removing the scaffolding.
If only I could be like Willow and just throw myself headlong into the fresh snow and make angels by waving my arms and legs, but I know too much. New media isn’t dead, it’s just getting older, like me. But we’re not going away. Happy New Year.