Frank Chimero talks about the ‘grain’ of the web. This idea that the web is a material that can’t fix itself. I’m trying to intuit it, or think of examples. The ones in the post don’t feel that intuitive. For instance, he shows a bear on a unicycle and compares it to the Apple website. It seems more of this ‘trying to fit a square peg in a round hole’. There’s some really nice art he shows that plays with the medium of photographs to convey motion. Similarly, the notion of infinite scroll or ‘edglessness’ is integrated into the web. It uses the idea of a vast space and then puts the box around it.
https://frankchimero.com/blog/2015/the-webs-grain/
The web is forcing our hands. And this is fine! Many sites will share design solutions, because we’re using the same materials. The consistencies establish best practices; they are proof of design patterns that play off of the needs of a common medium, and not evidence of a visual monoculture.
So this is a good start, but it is only a start. Could those simple sites I showed earlier assist us beyond the page and provide a larger way to think? To put a finer point on it: What would happen if we stopped treating the web like a blank canvas to paint on, and instead like a material to build with?
He talks about first creating the content, then fitting it to the space. Edgelessness. The idea that there is more to see than the fixed screen is emergent from this. When you want to convey more than the fixed screen.
Using technology to solve the problems it causes is as futile as cleaning a grass stain by rubbing grass on it. More technology only amplifies the problems created by an abundance of it. This leads to the most pressing question: How far out will technology grow? And when does it cross the line of comfort?