You have many of those icons and sounds in modern software/hardware that are remnants of the past. The "traditional phone ring" that you can pick (or is sometimes default), the analog "alarm clock" icon. "Smiling person emoji," even though we've all forgotten how to smile in 2020. And so on.
(I was gonna bring up the floppy disk until you mentioned it, and then I was going to point out the camera shutter sound until you mentioned that too.)
The phone ring one is such an obvious example, too! And yeah, those icons are certainly skeumorphic, reminiscent of the way cuneiform started with images and then morphed into text, but kept a lot of the remnants of the design.
Faux wood grain, faux leather vinyls, the calculator and calendars on your smart phone...skeuomorphs are everywhere!😂 My favorite has got to be analog clock faces on smart phones, or on clocks that automatically set according to a digital signal! We just won't give up some analog stuff!
That analog clock thing is interesting! I certainly grew up around these clocks.. are they still in classrooms and such, or are they disappearing from everywhere?
There's totally still a reason for the basket weave. It's texture for fingers and hands, which for a round shape and especially a larger one, helps a lot to not drop and break the vase.
My thing with those who write off stuff like this (not you, the people n your article) as vestigial and irrelevent is that they're not thinking through it enough to see why it does still matter, which more often than not, is the case.
Neat! In the animal kingdom, there's a lot of stuff that appears to be purely aesthetic, but still holds onto some function. This is surely true of many of the things we ourselves, make, although the larger point I was trying to make in the piece today was that there are purely aesthetic remnants, too, much more like the "save" icon.
Yes. I suspect this concept you write about says more about human arrogance than it does about anything else -- the assumption that because we haven't thought about what something might mean or can't see a use for it, it therefore must be useless and meaningless.
The "save icon is also not meaningless. Our eye appreciates familiarity because then we don't have to do the work of relearning a symbol. Even if no one remembers what floppy disks are, we know that the symbol for save is a square with a little cut out (or whatever it is) and that saves us mental bandwidth that is free to use elsewhere.
Familiarity in and of itself has a survival function.
the "www" in web addresses is similar. It's not useless. In fact, writing a web address without it confuses the eye because we have to get all the way to the end of the "word" before we realise it's a URL. the "www" in front signals us that we don't need to read it carefully. We can scan it knowing what it is and then continue reading.
I don't know much about pottery or basketry (okay, I know NOTHING about pottery or basketry), but I woudln't be surprised if the basket pattern was functional before it was ornamental -- not just for the traction for fingers, but also because it's much more practical to press a prexisting piece of woven material -- say, a basket -- into a wet vase than to spend hours making little marks on the surface. That that evolved into something ornamental, sure, that speaks to the human need for aesthetics as much as function. But neither of those things make the patterns, now or then, strictly ornamental or useless!
It's funny that you posted this now because I'm literally in the middle of writing about a Beatles song that most people write off as "meaningless" when it's anything but. (None of their songs are meaningless. This is Lennon/McCartney.)
I can't imagine anyone assuming a Lennon/McCartney song was anything but full of meaning, but those folks are (somehow) out there. That duo was just magical. <3
I've read that the function isn't the reason, at least some of the time... like they are only there for aesthetics in some cases. Any clarification on this?
good one but if I was making up my own word I would go with something easier to pronounce. Tech iconography is full of these in addition to the cute floppy disk for saving a file - like the phone icon on your mobile
I have come to admire the German language, particularly in its superpower ability to combine two regular German words into a new one. Let's come up with a new word for an experiment based on thought. How's "thoughtexperiment"? Sounds good to me!
English speakers be like, "can we make one work Greek and the other Latin?"
You have many of those icons and sounds in modern software/hardware that are remnants of the past. The "traditional phone ring" that you can pick (or is sometimes default), the analog "alarm clock" icon. "Smiling person emoji," even though we've all forgotten how to smile in 2020. And so on.
(I was gonna bring up the floppy disk until you mentioned it, and then I was going to point out the camera shutter sound until you mentioned that too.)
The phone ring one is such an obvious example, too! And yeah, those icons are certainly skeumorphic, reminiscent of the way cuneiform started with images and then morphed into text, but kept a lot of the remnants of the design.
I wrote a post about skeuomorphs last year, complaining about how they are such a problem https://lloydalter.substack.com/p/death-to-skeuomorphism
That's great! For folks looking for more specific examples, this is a great place to go next.
This was fascinating!! I've shared because I want everyone else to be as obsessed with skeumorphs as I am!
Thanks, Gillian! The concept is fascinating on a number of levels.
Faux wood grain, faux leather vinyls, the calculator and calendars on your smart phone...skeuomorphs are everywhere!😂 My favorite has got to be analog clock faces on smart phones, or on clocks that automatically set according to a digital signal! We just won't give up some analog stuff!
That analog clock thing is interesting! I certainly grew up around these clocks.. are they still in classrooms and such, or are they disappearing from everywhere?
Nope, they’re still everywhere!
There's totally still a reason for the basket weave. It's texture for fingers and hands, which for a round shape and especially a larger one, helps a lot to not drop and break the vase.
My thing with those who write off stuff like this (not you, the people n your article) as vestigial and irrelevent is that they're not thinking through it enough to see why it does still matter, which more often than not, is the case.
Neat! In the animal kingdom, there's a lot of stuff that appears to be purely aesthetic, but still holds onto some function. This is surely true of many of the things we ourselves, make, although the larger point I was trying to make in the piece today was that there are purely aesthetic remnants, too, much more like the "save" icon.
Yes. I suspect this concept you write about says more about human arrogance than it does about anything else -- the assumption that because we haven't thought about what something might mean or can't see a use for it, it therefore must be useless and meaningless.
The "save icon is also not meaningless. Our eye appreciates familiarity because then we don't have to do the work of relearning a symbol. Even if no one remembers what floppy disks are, we know that the symbol for save is a square with a little cut out (or whatever it is) and that saves us mental bandwidth that is free to use elsewhere.
Familiarity in and of itself has a survival function.
the "www" in web addresses is similar. It's not useless. In fact, writing a web address without it confuses the eye because we have to get all the way to the end of the "word" before we realise it's a URL. the "www" in front signals us that we don't need to read it carefully. We can scan it knowing what it is and then continue reading.
I don't know much about pottery or basketry (okay, I know NOTHING about pottery or basketry), but I woudln't be surprised if the basket pattern was functional before it was ornamental -- not just for the traction for fingers, but also because it's much more practical to press a prexisting piece of woven material -- say, a basket -- into a wet vase than to spend hours making little marks on the surface. That that evolved into something ornamental, sure, that speaks to the human need for aesthetics as much as function. But neither of those things make the patterns, now or then, strictly ornamental or useless!
It's funny that you posted this now because I'm literally in the middle of writing about a Beatles song that most people write off as "meaningless" when it's anything but. (None of their songs are meaningless. This is Lennon/McCartney.)
PS You always give such good food for thought!
I can't imagine anyone assuming a Lennon/McCartney song was anything but full of meaning, but those folks are (somehow) out there. That duo was just magical. <3
ah, you would be surprised at what people don’t see when they are motivated not to see it…
You can still see them on planes! Certainly on the outside.
I've read that the function isn't the reason, at least some of the time... like they are only there for aesthetics in some cases. Any clarification on this?
good one but if I was making up my own word I would go with something easier to pronounce. Tech iconography is full of these in addition to the cute floppy disk for saving a file - like the phone icon on your mobile
I have come to admire the German language, particularly in its superpower ability to combine two regular German words into a new one. Let's come up with a new word for an experiment based on thought. How's "thoughtexperiment"? Sounds good to me!
English speakers be like, "can we make one work Greek and the other Latin?"
Also abominations like Schmetterling
True, but IMO "flying butter" is terrifying.